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WILDFOWL OF THE NOKTH-EAST COAST : 



THEIR HAUNTS AND HABITS (continued). 



HAVING obtained from the "morning flight" a tolerably 

 accurate idea both of the numbers and the variety of wildfowl 

 in the neighbourhood, and of their distribution for the day, 

 we will launch the gunning-punt and follow that section of 

 the fowl which have passed inwards (i.e., up the harbour), 

 leaving those which have gone out to sea for another day. 



As the flowing tide covers the flats and the punt glides 

 over what had just before been a vast plain of slimy ooze, 

 sprinkled all over with a greenish -looking garbage, one is 

 surprised to see, beneath the craft, a luxuriant mass of 

 foliage. The mud has completely disappeared beneath a 

 dense growth of long green grass waving to and fro in the 

 tide-currents like a rich crop of clover-seeds on a windy day 

 in June. This sea-grass, so graceful when submerged, so 

 uninviting when lying high and dry on the ooze at low tide, 

 is the Zostera marina ; it is the first essential of wildfowl. 

 What heather is to Grouse and the stubbles to Partridge, such 

 is the Zostera to our sea-game. Geese and most of the 

 surface-feeding ducks live almost exclusively upon it while 

 on our coasts, and to the broad expanses of mud and ooze 

 where it grows abundantly, they will constantly resort, 

 despite all the artifices of the fowler. Here, roughly speak- 

 ing, the Geese feed by day and the Ducks by night, and will 

 continue to do so as long as such places continue to exist. 



The extreme luxuriance of this sea- grass is such that over 

 thousands of acres its densely thick fronds, each measuring 

 four or five feet in length, completely cover the whole surface 

 of the ooze as closely as the grass in a meadow. The depth 



