374. Wild Life in a Southern County. 
advances they seem to quit the lake in great part and 
go down tothe brooks. A streamlet that runs through 
a peaty field is a favourite spot. The little jack-snipe 
frequent the water-carriers in the irrigated meadows 
and the wet furrows. When the lake is frozen over 
the wild duck stand on the ice in the daytime for 
hours together, leaving the marks of their feet on it. 
In walking along the shore lines of drift may be 
noticed, marking the height to which the waves driven 
by the wind have carried the floating twigs, weeds, 
and leaves: just as along the sea the beach is formed 
into terraces by the changing height of the tides. 
The shallower parts of the lake are so thickly grown 
in summer with aquatic weeds that a boat can only 
be forced through them with the utmost difficulty. 
Some of these grow in as much as eight or even ten 
feet of water. On the shore, where it is marshy, 
the mare’s-tail flourishes over some acres: there is 
often a slight marshy odour here, which increases as 
the foot presses the yielding mud. 
When the water is low in autumn these are mown, 
and, with the aquatic grasses at the edge and the 
rushes, made into the roughest kind of hay ima- 
ginable. The coarser parts are used as litter ; the 
best is mixed with fodder and eaten by cattle. Many 
waggon loads are thus taken away, but as many more 
remain ; and in walking over the spongy ground a 
smart ‘ pop’ is continually heard: it is caused by the 
sudden compression of air under the foot in the 
