164 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



wide area to one practically horizontal plane as smooth as a 

 polished mahogany table. When cruising along the edge of 

 such a place, what looks like a solid wall of birds may be 

 observed ahead, from which there resounds a tumultuous 

 babble of harsh voices. These are all Godwits, standing in 

 vei-y shallow water. Long ere the punt can float within shot, 

 the solid wall is seen to be melting away by dribletS' — now a 

 dozen, then fiftj', or a hundred birds depart in detachments 

 as the tide creeps up, and before a fair range can be attained, 

 hardly a pair can be observed together. 



All these larger waders are feeding chiefly on the sand- 

 worms, whose numbers in such places are simply legion. 

 Hardly has the tide ebbed off" the sand than its smooth sur- 

 face is dotted and spotted all over with their myriad little 

 castings — as many as fifty to a hundred in the square yard. 

 Out beyond these flats to seaward, and separating them from 

 the open sea, there lies, in most harbours, the sand-bar, a 

 region of a different character, great part of which is never 

 covered by the tide — and of which, more anon. 



Thus, wildfowl resorts may be roughly divided into three 

 main regions, each of widely diff'erent features — (1) The 

 mud-flats, or " slakes," as they are called for distinction ; 

 (2) the tidal sand-flats ; and (3) the non-tidal sand-bar. 



Hard weather, as already mentioned, is unquestionably the 

 time of all others to see wildfowl in their most profuse 

 abundance ; it is, moreover, the time to get them. Severe 

 frost, it is well known, has a deadening, or soporific, eff'ect on 

 all (or nearly all) fowl, rendering them less alert to threaten- 

 ing dangers, and it also produces certain changes in their 

 normal habits, engendered by the altered climatic conditions 

 and by the difficulty in obtaining food. Mallard and "Wigeon, 

 for example, will, under these conditions, forsake their 

 regular nocturnal habits and resort by day in large numbers 

 to the oozes and feeding grounds of the estuaries. Here 

 they are, then, comparatively easy of approach, especially the 

 Mallard, on which severe cold produces exceptional eff'ect. 

 Small " paddlings " of six or eight to a dozen may be 

 approached in a gunning-punt within forty yards, sitting 

 apparently fast asleep among the ice, and with their bills 



