THE GAME-DUCKS 299 



sand are of immense extent, a considerable portion never 

 being' covered, even by the highest spring-tides. At low 

 water, mile after mile of fiat red-brown sand lies exposed — 

 the result of ages of ceaseless struggle between land and 

 sea. Far away across the level expanse, a white line of 

 breakers bounds the horizon to seaward ; and one may 

 wander for hours over the yielding" spongy surface without 

 an object in sight, except the grey-barnacled ribs of some 

 old wreck half swallowed in the shifting sands, or perhaps 

 a big grey seal cautiously basking in the bright October 

 sun, always close to the edge of a deep-water channel. 

 Presently we come across a spot where the smooth, 

 unruffled level is disturbed and the sand imprinted with 

 the paddlings of many webbed feet. All around lie strewn 

 for half-an-acre feathers, great and small — many long 

 and strong quills- — and other vestiges of a departed multi- 

 tude. That is where the grey-geese roosted last night. 1 

 To-night, if you lie in wait for their arrival, they will 

 perhaps take up their quarters a mile away. The flight- 

 gunners bury themselves in the sand at such places as 

 this, on the barest off-chance of getting a shot ; but, on so 

 vast an area of ground, it is the merest fluke if the geese 

 should happen to flight within range. 



The sand-bars are of course intersected by the main 

 stream of the estuary, which traverses the sand by one 

 or more deep-water channels on its course to the sea 

 outside. On these channels, and along the inner margin 

 of the sand-bar, the strong sweep of the tide cuts out 

 broad flats on a slightly lower level than that of the 



1 Note that those long and strong quills do not belong to the geese, which 

 shed not a feather in October. Geese moult all their quills together, in 

 July. The larger feathers alluded to have been cast by the great black* 

 backed gulls, which also frequent these desolate sands, and are now 

 gradually moulting their flight-feathers. 



