THE FORESHORES OF KEA. 

 Br THOMAS CRAGOE, F.R.G.S. 



Abstract. 



The foreshores of Kea, beginning at Calenick and ending at 

 Cowlings, comprise rather a long shoreline for a single jiarish. 

 This eastern boundary of the parish is traditionally the " Lower 

 End " of Kea, spelt Keye, and prefixed by the courteous title of 

 St. in Norden's Map. 



Low-lying, very sheltered, and lapped by the warm waters 

 of the western main, it becomes a fruit-bearing region, exhibit- 

 ing a marked contrast to that inland western boundary of Kea 

 which borders upon Grwennap. 



Along the dull mud-lined shores of Calenick Creek we find 

 few points of interest, silted up more and more within the 

 memory of the present generation, a light punt may hardly now 

 with a spring-tide find its way to the bridge, and a distorted 

 channel winding through a dreary waste of mud, bounded here 

 and there by the glaucous herbage of salt marshes, looks any- 

 thing but romantic and beautiful to the eye. 



Let us pass on, but be careful, these dry wiry tufts of rush 

 and grass are favoured haunts of the viper, and Trevaster Bar 

 is the chosen resort of the Sanderling, Calidris arenaria, and 

 flights of these birds as they wheel round in graceful curves of 

 alternate white and dun afford to the loitering naturalist a very 

 interesting sight. 



At Trevaster Point we meet with the vascular Fucus 

 attached to the rocks here, divided from the rocks under Penpoll 

 Wood by a wide expanse of mud forming Trevaster Bay. 



Now the green vegetation once so abundant here is the 

 Ulva compressa of Linnfeus, and the Enteromorpha compressa of 

 later writers, and though nothing can be more vile or common 

 to look at casually, its gelatinous tubular fronds, more or less 

 branched, are invested with a peculiar interest to the close 

 observer. Ray, who was more detailed and circumstantial in his 

 descriptions than other botanists, calls this sea-grass Ulva marina 

 tenuissima et compressa {vide Raii Synopsis 63, 5). 



