WILDFOWL OF THE NOETH-EAST COAST. 157 



the mud-flats, and across the broad yellow sand-bar beyond, 

 the white line of the breaking surf is just distinguishable 

 against the grey background of the open sea. In a few 

 hours time — 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. To all 

 appearance it might be forty fathoms deep ; yet, as a matter 

 of fact, there are thousands of acres over which the maxi- 

 mum depth — except in a few tide channels — never exceeds 

 from three to six feet, and of this depth one-half or more is 

 occupied by the long waving fronds of the sea-grass growing 

 from the bottom. 



Such a place is the heau ideal of a wildfowl resort ; those 

 tiny white dots stretching far along the shore are a couple 

 of thousand 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 undiminished numbers (greater or less ac- 

 cording to the season), and will continue to do so as long as 

 such places continue to exist, despite all that man can do. 

 His persecution, with all the artifices which his ingenuity can 

 devise, has certainly not the slightest effect on their numbers, 

 though it unquestionably modifies many of their habits, as 

 I propose hereafter to show. It should be remembered that 

 twice every twenty-four hours the fowl have secured to them 

 by the ebb of the tide periods of several hours' absolute im- 

 munity from molestation ; for then they can feed or rest, in 

 absolute peace and security, right out in the centre of miles 

 of mud-flats far too solid to admit the approach of a punt, 

 and yet too soft and " rotten " to bear the weight of a man. 



The staple fowl pursued by punt-gunners on the N.E. 

 coast (as in most British waters) in winter, are Brent Geese 

 by day. Mallard and Wigeon by night, Teal being seldom 

 met with on salt water after their autumnal passage in Sep- 

 tember and October. Among the minor objects of pursuit 

 are the diving-ducks, chiefly Scaup and Golden-eye, as well 

 as the larger class of wading birds — " hen-footed-fowl " I 

 have heard them called — both of which are mostly obtained 



