524 MR. F. LONG ON THE SALT-MARSH FLORA OF WELLS. 
itself sympathetically to the ordinary observer ; but let him 
wait a time and he will probably come to a different conclusion 
when he has discovered the secrets it has to unfold. 
I don’t think the praises of the salt-marsh have been 
sung by any poet, but it came very near it once. Some 
years ago the late Lord Tennyson, when Mr. Tennyson, came 
to stay with a friend at Warham, and when his friend took 
him to some high land and showed him an extensive view of 
salt-marsh and sea, he threw up his arms in rapture. Had 
he acquired more intimate acquaintance with its varying 
conditions of atmospheric effects, its flora and bird life, the 
salt-marsh might have been immortalized in verse. 
Standing on the quay at Wells and looking over the marsh, 
you see on the horizon, short of the sand hills, an indistinct 
rough ridge running east and west. This is the remains of 
an old bank that more than a hundred years ago shut out 
the tide from the marsh beyond, but now allows it to go 
through at three or four openings. Between this bank and 
the sand hills lies a somewhat triangular piece of marsh of 
260 acres in extent, called the Lodge Marsh, of which 150 
acres were under cultivation up to about the middle of the 
18th century. It is chiefly about here that the extensive 
fields of Statice limonium and S. reticulata flourish in such 
profusion, and I know of no other such extensive tracts 
along the coast. Excepting the statice beds, the rest of the 
marsh is covered with Suceda fruticosa , and as you get nearer 
to the sand hills the ground becomes more sandy. 
Till within the last few years there was a shallow channel 
admitting tidal water from the coast at high springs, which 
joined that coming from the main channel and creeks. This 
has now been closed by an artificial bank, so that a good part 
of the marsh about here is much drier now than it used to be, 
and sand is tending to collect on the level. Till recently 
rabbits abounded here and ate up every bit of grass and 
anything that was agreeable to their palate ; even henbane, 
which was rather plentiful here at one time, did not escape 
their ravages. I am glad to say that they let the Statices 
quite alone, although I rather fancy they ate the young stems 
