SALT MAESHBS 



but below the grasses. The flowers are small 

 and are hidden in the sheath-like base of the 

 leaves, which, in narrow ribbons but a quarter 

 of an inch wide, wave in long thickly matted 

 streamers in the channel beds, and shelter in 

 their shady forest groves snails and w^orms, 

 crabs and eels. While living, the eel grass is 

 a good friend to these creatures, and dead and 

 cast up on the marshes or beaches it serves 

 many a useful purpose, tinder its shelter- 

 ing windrows the sharp-tailed and Savannah 

 sparrows build their homes, while the oriole, 

 red-wing and robin weave it into their nests; 

 the gunner stacks it w^ into a blind, in front 

 of which he places his decoys to beguile the 

 wandering shore-birds, and the clammer, fish- 

 erman and farmer pack it about the founda- 

 tions of their houses to keep out the frost and 

 the winter winds. 



The next plant zone is equally simple and 

 also limited to one species, the thatch grass, 

 that grows from within two or three feet of 

 low-tide level to the level of the ordinary high 

 tide. "V\Tiere the marsh is built up so high 

 that it ceases to be washed by every tide, then 

 the thatch ceases to grow, for it needs daily 

 contact with old ocean. It is replaced by the 



191 



