BIRDS AND HIPPOPOTAMI 



such places. In France, e.g., the leeches in the great marshes 

 near the Landes form a source of riches. Such reeds also are 

 or were the home of the hippopotamus, crocodile, and other 

 extraordinary animals. The extinct British hippopotamus 

 no doubt found in the Chelsea or other marshes a home as 

 congenial to its tastes as is the sudd of Egypt to its living 

 descendants or allies. In other places the enormous quanti- 

 ties of water birds, myriads of ducks, geese, swans, regiments 

 of flamingoes, snipe, and the like, have called into existence 

 peculiar kinds of industry in fowling and netting that are 

 not without importance. The decoys in the Fens yield 

 hundreds of birds for the London market, and the duck- 

 punts with their huge guns also bring in quantities of wild 

 fowl. 



But all this industry is very trifling compared with that 

 of Phragmites and its associates, who have strained from the 

 water of the Thames most of the ground on which London 

 now stands. 



212 



