H2 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



days of George Crabbe it was no uncommon thing to 



hear 



" the loud bittern, from the bullrush home, 

 Give from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom." 



But many of the rarer birds have forsaken their ancient 

 haunts, although in hard winters a goodly number of 

 interesting species are met with. And the reclaiming 

 of the marshes has also affected the flora of the district. 

 Many choice plants have vanished, or have become ex- 

 ceedingly rare. The splendid Osmunda or Royal fern, 

 once common in the marshes, is now seldom seen. The 

 marsh ragwort and the marsh Cineraria have become 

 very scarce, while the great marsh sow-thistle is all but 

 extinct. So too with the choice two-leaved Liparis 

 or fen-orchis. It formerly grew in many of the Suffolk 

 bogs and marshes, but has now very nearly disappeared. 

 But though the Minsmere marshes have been drained, 

 and cattle and horses now feed on a broad expanse of 

 pasture-land, yet along the dykes which intersect the 

 Level many interesting plants may be met with. The 

 flora of these dykes or ditches is, of course, entirely 

 different from that of the adjacent sand-dunes and 

 shingle which separate the reclaimed marshes from the 

 shore, or of the meal marshes which often border the 

 sea. It is a flora of its own, consisting of aquatic and 

 bog plants, of pondweeds, sedges and rushes, and in- 

 cluding several species of ferns which have now become 

 extremely rare. And this flora, if lacking the peculiar 

 fascination of that of the seashore, is not without 

 interest and distinction. Indeed there is much pleasure 

 in wandering along these straight dykes fringed with 

 reeds and tall grasses, the haunt of ducks and moor- 

 hens, of dabchicks and reed-warblers. 



