place overflowed with water, or abounding with bogs. See Bog and Draining.

Fens are either made up of a congeries of bogs; or consist of a multitude of pools or lakes, with dry spots of land intermixed, like so many little islands.

Several statutes have been made for the draining of fens, chiefly in Kent, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, and Lincolnshire; and by a late act, 11 Geo. II. commissioners shall be appointed for the effectually draining and preserving of the fens in the isle of Ely, who are authorized to make drains, dams, and proper works thereon; and they may charge the landholders therein with a yearly acre-tax, and, in default of payment, sell the defender's lands.

The wet grounds called fens, in Lincolnshire and elsewhere in England, bring many advantages to the inhabitants of those counties. Fowl and fish are very plentiful in them. The pike and eels are large and easily caught, but they are usually coarse. The duck, mallard, and teal, are in such plenty as is scarce to be conceived. They are taken by decoys in prodigious flocks at a time. They send these fowl from Lincolnshire to London, twice a week, on horseback, from Michaelmas to Lady-day; and one decoy will furnish 20 dozen, or more, twice a week, for the whole season in this manner. The decoy-men contract with the people, who bring them to London at a certain rate, and they are obliged to take off their hands the whole number that is caught. Two teal are usually reckoned equal to one duck; and six ducks and 12 teal are accounted a dozen of wild-fowl; and the usual market price is about 9s. for such a dozen. About midsummer, during the moulting season, a great number also are destroyed by the people in the neighbourhoods. The poor birds at this season are neither able to swim nor fly well; and the people going in with boats among the reeds where they lie, knock them down with long poles. A little before Michaelmas, vast flights of these birds arrive at the decoys from other places; they soon grow fat in them, and continue there a prey to the masters or owners, as long as the decoys are unfrozen; but, when they are iced over, they fly away again, and go to the neighbouring seas for food.

The fens also abound in a sort of herbage that is very nourishing to cattle. Sheep and horses always grow fat upon it. These fens are common, and the owners of cattle mark them that they may be known. It is remarkable, that, though all is open, the cattle used to one particular spot of ground seldom leave it, but the owner may always find them in or near the same place. The fens have many large and deep drains. In these the pike and eel grow to a vast size; and they are full of geese which feed on the grass; but these eat rank and muddy, and may even be found as soon as a person comes into the room where they are roosting. But the people have another very great advantage from these birds besides the eating of them, namely, their feathers and quills; and the produce of these is so great, that the custom-house books in the town of Bolton show, that there are frequently sent away in one year 300 bags of feathers, each containing a hundred and a half weight. Each pound of feathers brings in the owner twopence; and it may be thought strange by people unacquainted with these things, but it is a certain truth, that the owners pull them five or six times a year for the feathers, and three times for the quills. Each pulling comes to about a pound, and many people have 1000 geese at a time, or more. They are kept at no charge, except in deep snowy weather, when they are obliged to feed them with corn.

Oats also grow very well in many of the fen countries, and in good seasons bring great increase and advantage to the owners. There is also another vegetable of great profit to them. This is the rapum filiciflorum, the seed of which they call cole feed; and they make an oil from it of great use in trade. They grind the seed between two large stones, the one standing perpendicularly on the other. The stones are made of a sort of black marble, and are brought from Germany. They sometimes turn them by sails, and sometimes by the drains which carry off the water from the fen lands.

The fens lying low, and being of a vast extent, are very subject to be overflowed by waters from the neighbouring high countries; and though great care and expense Fence.

Expense is used to keep them dry, they are often like a sea; and the sheep are obliged to be carried off in boats, and the people to live in their upper rooms, and to be supplied with provisions also with boats.