BREYDON IN LEISURELY AUTUMN 157 



the Zostera and in interstices in the walls, until their new 

 and larger jackets have hardened, a process very soon com- 

 pleted. 



Curlew and gull, eel and blenny eagerly pursue these small 

 crabs and find them nutritious food ; in maw and stomach 

 the shelly armour soon dissolves to a gelatinous mass, and 

 there is an end of " crabbie." That line of empty " shells " 

 certainly looks odd against the deep green of the wall- 

 grasses, just as if some one had used a huge lump of soft 

 chalk, and drawn the line on purpose. 



These old flats fairly teem with life. It will be interesting 

 to stroll a little way barefoot ; we shall take no harm, for even 

 on Rotten Eye, where fifty years ago no one dared to walk 

 for fear of sinking thigh-deep, and where in the 8o's I 

 used to walk " gingerly " with an oar for company, one can 

 now strut only ankle-deep. There are soft places at the 

 edge of the channel yonder that to this day are, to me, an 

 abomination. Walking on the prostrate Zostera is as safe and 

 easy as walking on the marshes. Nature here works slowly 

 sometimes. Here are the footprints, still distinct, of Banham's 

 boy, who came here " winkling " two or three days ago ; and 

 here are quant-holes I made in shoving across at high water 

 the following day. Yet it is astonishing how in a few days 

 small creeks will get scoured deeply, and in corners affected 

 by eddies the mud will silt up an inch in a week. 



One needs no mud-pattens, although there are places where 

 broken bottles and ragged timber may do mischief. You 

 can never walk barefoot here but the fear of mishap is 

 ever present. The punters never foot the mudflats without 

 having good sea-boots on, nor do the smelters. 



Here and there we notice the jets squirted up by clams 

 and shellfish ; shrimps and little and yellow gobies scatter 

 and scuttle about in the " lows," and occasionally in a deeper 

 puddle the unmistakable scurry of a little eel, or the dash 

 of a young flounder, attracts attention. The soft mud is 

 riddled with countless holes ; the smaller ones were "pricked" 

 by mudworms. I push down my bared arm some seven or 

 eight inches, quickly too, and my fingers come in contact with 

 a hard substance, which by a curling of my finger I at once 

 decide to be a clam. Out it comes ! What a state my arm is 

 in black and muddy ! At the nearest puddle I wash it 



