SOME BIRD NOTES 265 



plentiful supply of food, and safe from prowling gunners. 

 When strolling to Gorton on November I5th, 1905, 1 counted 

 nearly two hundred scoters, diving and floating, about a 

 hundred and fifty yards from the shore. A flock of them 

 occasionally puts in an appearance in the Ham. 



The shrimpers complained of taking quantities of the 

 cross-fish in their nets in May and June, 1906, when fishing 

 off the north of Yarmouth ; and they remarked to me on 

 the disappearance of a considerable bed of horse-mussels 

 which existed near the bell-buoy some little while ago. 

 Empty valves only are now dredged up, the star-fishes 

 having, they allege, attacked them in great numbers and 

 killed them all. Probably this is another reason for the 

 scoters changing their feeding-grounds. 



POCHARDS AND " POKER-GRASS 



In my conversations with the oldest men about Breydon, 

 who can remember great changes having taken place, not 

 only with regard to the lessening of certain species, but in 

 the formation of the place, together with alterations in its 

 salinity and its plant-life, nearly all of them (there are at 

 most half a score only now living) have referred to a plant 

 which they called " poker-grass " poker being a local 

 synonym for pochard. I have tried hard to identify this 

 plant, which locally must have become extinct ; and have 

 made numerous inquiries respecting it. 



Mr. Robert Gurney remarks : " I cannot help you about 

 the plant. ... It sounds rather like Potamogeton pectinatum. 

 I think that is what the pochards feed on at Horsey and 

 Hickling there are masses of it there." 



In the September of 1906 I visited Hickling and Horsey 

 Broads, and saw considerable patches of it ; but it did not 

 satisfy me as to its being the weed described by the old 

 Breydoners. I therefore wrote to the Eastern Daily Press as 

 follows : 



" SIR, When in conversation with one of the worn-out 

 Breydoners ... he greatly aroused my interest by referring 

 to a large bed of what he termed ' poker-grass,' that grew on 

 the flats in the old days, when fresh water obtained there for 



