A NATIVE NATURALIST 241 



broken waves in " fluctuation fixed." And in a sense 

 they are waves, formed of sand which the ocean 

 brings out of its depths and exposes at low water, to 

 be swept up by the everlasting winds and heaped in 

 hills along the sea-front ; and no sooner are the hills 

 built than the wind unbuilds them again, carrying the 

 yellow dust further inland to build other hills and yet 

 others, burying the green farm-lands and houses and 

 entire villages in their desolating progress. This, they 

 say, was the state of things no longer ago than the 

 eighteenth century, when some wise person discovered 

 or remembered that Nature herself has a remedy for 

 this evil, a means of staying the wind-blown sands in 

 their march. The common sea rush, Psamma arenarla^ 

 the long coarse grass which grows on the sand by the 

 sea, was introduced the roots or seed, I do not know 

 which ; and it grew and spread, and in a little while 

 took complete possession of all that desolate strip of 

 land, clothing the deep hollows and wave-like hills to 

 their summits with its pale, sere-looking, grey-green 

 tussocks. As you walk there, when the wind blows 

 from the sea, the fine, dry, invisible particles rain on 

 your face and sting your eyes ; but all this travelling 

 sand comes from the beach and can do no harm, for 

 where it falls it must lie and serve as food for the 

 conquering sea rush. If you examine the earth you 

 will find it bound down with a matting of tough roots 

 and rootlets, and that in the spaces between the 

 tussocks the decaying rush has formed a thin mould 

 and is covered with mosses and lichens, and in many 

 places with a turf as on the chalk downs. 



