POINT SHOOTING. 4II 



is not lacking ; but there can be little nutriment in the 

 hard cane or its harsh leaves, or in the coarse, round 

 marsh grass which grows only in infrequent patches. 

 The drifting grass, which consists of the rejected por- 

 tions of the water plants pulled up by the wildfowl in 

 their search for its roots, is scanty in quantity, and can 

 hardly be very nourishing food. The hogs do better 

 than horses or cattle, for they unearth the roots of the 

 cane and the flags, and must procure not a little animal 

 food. 



The horses are confined to the outer beach, and visit 

 the adjacent marsh only to feed. They are little ani- 

 mals, not unlike the well-known Chincoteague* beach 

 ponies, and are all branded. They are a tough and 

 hardy race, qualified through inheritance and experi- 

 ence well to fight the battle of life. The cattle are 

 small, wild and scrawny. 



Occasionally when you are sailing through these 

 waters you will see, as you pass a watchman's house, a 

 fresh skin tacked up to dry, and the long, ringed tail 

 hanging down from it at once proclaims its species. 

 Coons are abundant here, and it is not strange that they 

 are so. In summer the nesting birds and in winter the 

 crippled ducks furnish them feathered food, while at all 

 seasons the waters abound in fish. We are most of us 

 accustomed to think of coons as passing a good part of 

 their time in trees, but the coons of the marsh must by 

 this time, I should think, have lost the art of tree 

 climbing; since, except for an occasional straggling 

 pillentary bush, there is here nothing larger to climb 



