WILDFOWL OF THE NORTH-EAST COAST. 163 



and rich quality of the mud itself are favourable to this 

 exuberant fertility both of the Zostera and of many algse and 

 other marine plants which grow on its surface. Among these is 

 the marsh samphire {Salicornia herbacea), which alone stands 

 upright, not unlike the "mare's tail," but does not appear to 

 be relished by wildfowl. The profusion and variety of marine 

 vegetation which flourishes in such situations is, indeed, as 

 great as that which clothes the inland fields and fells, and it 

 is this which attracts the wildfowl to our coasts. Yet how 

 strange is the almost universal error that wildfowl live on 

 fish. " What can you do with these ducks and geese ; 

 surely they must be very fishy? " are the almost invariable 

 questions asked, often by people who should know better. 

 The food of the game-ducks and geese is quite as exclu- 

 sively vegetable as is that of the game-birds themselves. 



When cruising about in these wide flat " salt slakes," one 

 soon observes that they consist of two diflerent materials, 

 each possessing very distinct characteristics. The two 

 materials are mud and sand. On the former alone grows 

 the Zostera, and to it, therefore, resort the flat-billed fowl 

 ■ — ducks and geese. But the sand-flats and the sandy- 

 bottomed channels have each a character and a fauna of their 

 own. The bird population of the sands are chiefly waders — 

 Curlews, Godwits, Grey Plovers, and birds of that ilk, 

 together with a few Sheld Ducks ; while the deep-water chan- 

 nels, or " guts," are the resort of divers of all denominations, 

 namely. Scaup and Golden-eyes, Mergansers, Cormorants, 

 Grebes, and the Colymbi. 



The sand-flats, which on some parts of the coast are of 

 immense extent, are not favourable grounds for punting 

 operations, even though occupied by thousands of birds. 

 Their surface is too level. A fall of, perhaps, half a foot to 

 the mile renders it demonstrably impossible to float a punt 

 (drawing, say, three inches) within many hundred yards of 

 birds sitting on the " dry." The mud, one would think, is 

 flat enough ; but on it there are slight banks and hollows, 

 and shallow winding creeks. Sand is a far less coherent 

 substance, and the powerful sweep of the tide removes the 

 very slightest irregularity of surface, and reduces the whole 



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