Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/183

Rh of the wading and swimming classes; its easterly position, the open, exposed, and varied nature of the locality, with its wealth of marsh-land, its spread of waterways, and extensive warrens, offer unusual attractions to those species which may be collectively termed wildfowl. The list which follows will amply support this statement.

Northwards for many miles stretches an array of sadly diminishing sand-hills, or undulating knolls and ridges of blown sand, held together by the roots of the marrum grass (Ammophila arundinacea), the sand-sedge (Carex arenaria), Ononis spinosa, and various other deep-rooting dune-plants interesting to the botanist, and in whose seeds, laid bare by the winds of autumn, migratory Buntings and Finches find an abundant supply of food. In turn these sand-dunes have attractions for the Sand-Grouse, the Dotterel, the Great Snipe, and others.

Nearer the town the sand-hills have been levelled in recent years, and are fronted by a sea-wall and macadamized road, which extends parallel for some distance to the once celebrated North Denes, at one time an extensive area of rounded and broken sand-heaps, covered with acres of furze, now extirpated, and given over to the golfer. A railway runs through the centre of them, and the town keeps slowly creeping northwards beside it. Up to the end of the seventies the Whinchat, Stonechat, Linnet, Wheatear, and even Partridges nested in the whins; the Wood-Pigeon, Turtle-Dove, Stock-Dove, and Mistle-Thrush came in flocks in summer to feed here. At Caister and beyond, the sand-hills become higher, and the vegetation more varied, the brake, broom, and sea-buckthorn being conspicuous; and Rabbits abound. The beach below presents a long monotonous level of clear firm sand, sparsely "shingled" or pebbled, with few tide-pools; spring tides cover the sands almost to the sand cliffs. Until within the past year or two a few Ringed Plovers have persevered in nesting among the higher patches of shingle, the site chosen being a depression probably caused by a horse's hoof, the bottom of which is usually lined with small pieces of shell or thin white chalky stones. Constant traffic has banished this bird, the only species known to have nested there within the memory of man. One nest was found on the south beach in 1899.