THE SWANNERY AT ABBOTSBURY 



WHETHER judged by the strangeness and beauty 

 of its surroundings, or the number and variety of 

 the wild birds that make it their home, there is 

 no more attractive spot for the naturalist, even on 

 the line of coast which includes Poole Haven, Christ- 

 church, and Lymington, than the Fleet, the straight 

 lagoon which runs for nine miles from the Isle of 

 Portland to Abbotsbury, behind the barrier of Chesil 

 Beach. There is not an acre of water on the narrow 

 shining lagoon, or a rood of shingle on the Chesil 

 Beach which banks it in, that is not the chosen home 

 of the wild-fowl of the river or the shore. During 

 the winter, wild ducks and coots in thousands crowd 

 the sheltered waters of the Fleet ; in summer, the 

 hot and hazy surface of the shingle swarms with the 

 young of the terns and dotterels ; and at the head of 

 the water, in an almost tropical growth of pampas 

 grass and fuchsias, and the rankest luxuriance of the 

 herbage of the marsh, is the swan paradise of Abbots- 

 bury. The nine straight miles of water below is only 

 the playground of the birds ; but in spring this is 



