CHAPTER XXIV 



WILDFOWL OF THE NORTH-EAST COAST 



Their Haunts and Habits — continued 



Having obtained from the "morning- flight " a tolerably 

 accurate idea both of the numbers and the variety of 

 wildfowl in the neighbourhood, and of their distribution 

 for the day, we will launch the gunning-punt and follow 

 that section of the fowl which have passed inwards 

 {i.e., up the harbour), leaving those which have gone out 

 to sea for another day. 



As the flowing tide covers the flats, and the punt 

 presently glides over what had just before been slimy 

 ooze, all verdant with recumbent masses of algs, one 

 is surprised to see, beneath the craft, a luxuriant maze 

 of foliage. The mud has disappeared beneath a dense 

 growth of long green grass waving to and fro in the 

 tide-currents like a rich crop of clover-seeds on a windy 

 day in June. This sea-grass, so graceful when sub- 

 merged, though almost repellent when lying high and 

 dry on the ooze at low tide, is the Zostera 7narina. 

 It is the first essential of wildfowl. What heather is 

 to grouse and stubbles are to partridge, such is the 

 Zostera to our sea-game. Geese and most of the 



surface-feeding ducks live almost exclusively upon it 



ass 



