e hear much these days about the rapidly changing face of the British countryside, and there can be no doubt that uprooted hedges, marsh drainage and the onward march of the concrete-mixer have altered many once-wild places for the worse. It is by no means so everywhere, and my early duck shooting farm is a case in point. I have shot there for an unbroken run of more than a quarter of a century of autumns and can honestly say that any changes have been inconsiderable. There is the same riot of rush, nettle and water dock on the drove side, the same dilapidated bridge, the same weedy corn, carrots, potatoes and sugar beet which, with the years, change only their rotation. The most attractive
