BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 353 



farm premises, and the other betaken itself to the tidal 

 estuary, to feast upon the zostera, or sea-wrack, growing 

 luxuriantly upon the mud-flats, sharing it with the wigeon, 

 which so delights in it as to have given it the expressive 

 cognomen of * wigeon grass.' 



Often there are winters that the B roadmen call 'open,' 

 when for the briefest possible periods the Broads are covered 

 by the merest ' slub/ through which the punt goes crackling 

 and rasping her way ; while on average days the clouds drop 

 sleet or disperse an uncomfortable and persistent drizzle. On 

 these days the fowl are wilder and more alert : the pochard 

 warily feeds among the towy potamogeton, with sentinels 

 always on the alert against danger. Even the coots, tame 

 enough in summer days, are vigilant and suspicious, and 

 make for the reeds on the least alarm, although, somehow, 

 they seem to discriminate between the man with the gun and 

 the man who angles. The persevering pike-fisher, to whom 

 the wintry Broads are as delectable as his summer roach- 

 swims, inspires them with no disquietude. 



A short winter day's pottering in Broadland, to the man 

 who can conquer a disinclination to face a drizzly rain and a 

 spiteful wind, is as full of incident as a spring day at its best. 

 One Broad is as wintry as another, and a curious likeness marks 

 them all. The sea-winds hustle over the sand-cliffs, sweeping 

 along the water whose margins are ill defined by sedges and 

 reeds and marshy stubble : swampy levels and tussocky 

 , ronds, like South Sea atolls, push their way into the view : 

 and land and lagoon seem akin. 



The low banks of some such river as the Thurne are bare 

 now of iris and pink willow-herb, and sweet-scented sedges : 

 the B roadman has left nothing but the stubble of the 

 * gladden/ There are many sterner attractions. A stunted 

 willow here and there breaks the level of the banks, and a 



