WILDFOWL OF THE NORTH-EAST COAST 281 



Jarrow slake on the Tyne, and the Teesmouth is rapidly 

 following" suit. 



The places which are most favoured of wildfowl are 

 precisely those which are least congenial to man — remote 

 and lonely expanses of tidal ooze. Such conditions 

 only obtain either at the estuaries of large rivers, or on 

 those low-lying" parts of the coast where land and sea are 

 engaged along the boundary line in one ceaseless perennial 

 struggle for dominion — their battle-ground a vast level 

 stretch of sand, mud, and ooze, which nee tellus est, nee 

 mare. In such a spot, at low tide, the eye roams over 

 illimitable expanses of flat, featureless foreshore ; miles 

 away in the far distance, across the mud-flats, and across 

 the broad yellow sand-bar beyond, a white line of breaking 

 surf is just distinguishable against the grey background 

 of the open sea. At high tide this whole expanse will 

 be one great sheet of blue salt water, reaching right up 

 to the hedgerows of the stubbles and pasture-fields, and 

 to a passer-by not distinguishable from the sea itself. 

 Then, to all appearance, it might be forty fathoms deep ; 

 while, as a matter of fact, there will be thousands of 

 acres over which the maximum depth — except in a few 

 tide-channels — never exceeds from three to six feet, and 

 of this depth one-half or more will be occupied by the 

 long waving fronds of the sea-grass growing from the 

 submerged oozes. 



Such a place is the favoured resort of wildfowl ; those 

 tiny white dots stretching far along the shore are a couple 

 of thousand brent geese ! They are in five feet of water, 

 but graze easily on the long shoots of the sea-grass 

 beneath them. To such a resort as described wildfowl 

 still come every winter in numbers greater or less accord- 

 ing to the season, and will continue to do so as long 



