SHORE AND SALT-MARSH 



ON wide, flat shores fine days in later summer have a peculiar 

 fascination. There is a freshness in the sea air which has 

 vanished at this time of year from the inland pastures and 

 cornfields in the hot part of the day. The untamed sea sends 

 its breath through the heat of July, and there seems some- 

 thing wild and akin to it in the flight and cries of the birds 

 of the salt-marsh and shore. The flowers are also strange 

 to inland eyes. Yellow sea-poppies seem not only beautiful 

 but wonderful ; for there is so sudden and marked a change in 

 the transit from ordered inland landscapes to the alien life of 

 the shore that it restores to us a child's capacity for fresh experi- 

 ence. The sea-poppy is certainly less brilliant than the com- 

 mon corn-poppy, which is the most brilliant of all our flowers ; 

 but it is a more striking plant in other ways. The pure 

 yellow blossoms make an exquisite contrast with the cool 

 blue-green foliage, which is far more abundant than the corn- 

 poppy's little leaves. Sea-poppies sometimes form thick 

 beds or brakes, that a rabbit might shelter beneath ; and by 

 that time the dying blossoms begin to send forth their long 

 narrow seed-vessels, interlaced like distorted horns. 



By August the blossoms are rare, though the eccentric 

 growth of the stems and seed-vessels is often at its height. 



