Richard Jefferies (continued 6)

In the early summer the lime trees flower, and are then visited by busy swarms of bees, causing a hum in the air overhead. So, in like manner, on October 16, I passed under an old oak almost hidden by ivy, and paused to listen to the loud hum made by the insects that came to the ivy blossom. They were principally bees, wasps, large black flies, and tiny gnats. Suddenly a wasp attacked one of the largest of the flies, and the two fell down on a bush, where they brought up on a leaf.

The fly was very large, of a square build, and wrestled with its assailant vigorously. But in a few seconds, the wasp, getting the mastery, brought his tail round, and stung the fly twice, thrice, in rapid succession in the abdomen, and then held tight. Almost immediately the fly grew feeble; then the wasp snipped off its proboscis, and next the legs. Then he seized the fly just behind the head, and bit off pieces of the wings; these, the proboscis, and the legs dropped to the ground. The fell purpose of the wasp is not easily described; he stung and snipped and bit and reduced his prey to utter helplessness, without the pause of a second.

So eager was he that while cutting the wings to pieces he fell off the leaf, but clung tight to the fly, and, although it was nearly as big as himself, carried it easily to another leaf. There he rolled the fly round, snipped off the head, which dropped, and devoured the internal part; but slipped again and recovered himself on a third leaf, and as it were picked the remaining small portion. What had been a great insect had almost disappeared in a few minutes.

After the arrival of the fieldfares the days seem to rapidly shorten, till towards the end of December the cocks, reversing their usual practice, crow in the evening, hours before midnight. The cockcrow is usually associated with the dawn, and the change of habit just when the nights are longest is interesting.

Birds have a Feng-shui of their own—an unwritten and occult science of the healthy and unhealthy places of residence—and seem to select localities in accordance with the laws of this magical interpretation of nature. The sparrows, by preference, choose the southern side of a house for their nests. This is very noticeable on old thatched houses, where one slope of the roof happens to face the north and another the south. On the north side the thatch has been known to last thirty years without renewal—it decays so slowly. The moss, however, grows thickly on that side, and if not removed would completely cover it. Moss prefers the shade; and so in the woodlands the meadows on the north or shady side of the copses are often quite overgrown with moss, which is pleasant to walk on, but destroys the herbage. But on the south side of the roof, the rain coming from that quarter, the wind and sun cause the thatch to rapidly deteriorate, so that it requires to be constantly repaired.

Now, instead of working their holes into the northern slope, sheltered from wind and rain, nine out of ten of the sparrows make their nests on the south, and, of course, by pulling out the straw still further assist the decay of the thatch there. The influence of light seems to be traceable in this; and it does occur whether other birds that use trees and bushes for their nests may not really be guided in their selection by some similar rule. The trees and bushes they select to us look much the same as others; but the birds may none the less have some reasons of their own. And as certain localities, as previously observed, are great favourites with them and others are deserted, possibly Feng-shui may have something to do with that also.

The nomadic tribes that live in tents, and wander over thousands of miles in the East, at first sight seem to roam aimlessly, or to be determined simply by considerations of water and pasture. But those who have lived with and studied them say that, though they have no maps, each tribe, and even each particular family, has its own special route and special camping-ground. Could these routes be mapped out, they would present an interlaced pattern of lines crossing and recrossing without any appreciable order; yet one family never interferes with another family. This statement seems to me to be most interesting if compared with the habits of birds that roam hither and thither apparently without order or method, that come back in the spring to particular places, and depart again after their young are reared. Though to us they wander aimlessly, it is possible that from their point of view they may be following strictly prescribed routes sanctioned by immemorial custom.

And so itinerant labourers move about. In the particular district which has been described their motions are roughly these:—In the early spring they go up on the uplands, where there are many thousand acres of arable land, for the hoeing. Then comes a short space of employment—haymaking in the water-meadows that follow the course of the rivers there, and which are cut very early. Next, they return down into the vale, where the haymaking has then commenced. Just before it begins the Irish arrive in small parties, coming all the way from their native land to gather the high wages paid during the English harvest time. They show a pleasing attachment to the employer who has once given them work and treated them with a little kindness. To him they go first; and thus it often happens that the same band of Irish return to the same farm year after year as regularly as the cuckoo. They lodge in an open shed, making a fire in the corner of the hedge where it is sheltered. They are industrious, work well, drink little, and bear generally a good character.

After the haymaking in the vale is finished, the itinerant families turn towards the lighter soils, where the corn crops are fast ripening, and soon leave the scene of their former labours fifty miles behind them. A few perhaps straggle back in time to assist in the latter part of the corn harvest on the heavy lands, if it has been delayed by the weather. The physicians say that change of air is essential to health: the migration of birds may not be without its effect upon their lives, quite apart from the search for food alone.

The dry walls which sometimes enclose cornfields (built of flat stones) are favourite places with many birds. The yellowhammers often alight on them, so do the finches and larks; for the coarse mortar laid on the top decays and is overgrown with mosses, so that it loses the hard appearance of a wall. When the sparrow who has waited till you are close to him suddenly starts, his wings, beating the air, make a sound like the string of a bow pulled and released—to try it without an arrow.

The dexterous way in which a bird helps itself to thistledown is interesting to watch. The thistle has no branch on which he can perch; he must take it on the wing. He flies straight to the head of the thistle, stoops as it were, seizes the down, and passes on with it in the bill to the nearest bough—much in the same way as some tribes of horsemen are related to pick up a lance from the ground whilst going at full speed.

Many birds twirl their ‘r’s;’ others lisp, as the nightingale, and instead of ‘sweet’ say ‘thweet, thweet’ The finches call to each other, ‘Kywee, kywee—tweo—thweet,’ which, whatever may be its true translation, has a peculiarly soothing effect on the ear. Swifts usually fly at a great height, and, being scattered in the atmosphere, do not appear numerous; but sometimes during a stiff gale they descend and concentrate over an open field, there wheeling round and to and fro only just above the grass. Then the ground looks quite black with them as they dart over it: they exhibit no fear, but if you stand in the midst come all round you so close that they might be knocked down with a walking-stick if used quick enough. In the air they do not look large, but when so near as this they are seen to be of considerable size. The appearance of hundreds of these jet black, long-winged birds, flying with marvellous rapidity and threading an inextricable maze almost, as it were, under foot is very striking.

The proverbial present of a white elephant is paralleled in bird life by the gift of the cuckoo’s egg. The bird whose nest is chosen never deserts the strange changeling, but seems to feel feeding the young cuckoo to be a sacred duty, and sees its own young ejected and perishing without apparent concern. My attention was called one spring to a robin’s nest made in a stubble rick; there chanced to be a slight hollow in the side of the tick, and this had been enlarged. A cuckoo laid her egg in the nest, and as it happened to be near some cowsheds it was found and watched. When the young bird began to get fledged some sticks were inserted in the rick so as to form a cage, that it might not escape, and there the cuckoo grew to maturity and to full feather.

All the while the labour undergone by the robins in supplying the wide throat of the cuckoo with food was something incredible. It was only necessary to wait a very few minutes before one or other came, but the voracious creature seemed never satisfied; he was bigger than both his foster-parents put together, and they waited on him like slaves. It was really distressing to see their unrewarded toil. Now, no argument will ever convince me that the robin or the wagtail, or any other bird in whose nest the cuckoo lays its egg, can ever confound the intruding progeny with its own offspring. Irrespective of size, the plumage is so different; and there is another reason why they must know the two apart: the cuckoo as he grows larger begins to resemble the hawk, of which all birds are well known to feel the greatest terror. They will pursue a cuckoo exactly as they will a hawk.

I will not say that that is because they mistake it for a hawk, for the longer I observe the more I am convinced that birds and animals often act from causes quite distinct from those which at first sight appear sufficient to account for their motions. But about the fact of the lesser birds chasing the cuckoo there is no doubt. Are they endeavouring to drive her away that she may not lay her egg in either of their nests? In any case it is clear that birds do recognise the cuckoo as something distinct from themselves, and therefore I will never believe that the foster-parent for a moment supposes the young cuckoo to be its own offspring.

To our eyes one young robin (meaning out of the nest—on the hedge) is almost identical with another young robin; to our ears the querulous cry of one for food is confusingly like that of another: yet the various parent birds easily distinguish, recognise, and feed their own young. Then to suppose that, with such powers of observation—with the keenness of vision that can detect an insect or a worm moving in the grass from a branch twenty feet or more above it, and detect it while to all appearance engaged in watching your approach—to suppose that the robin does not know that the cuckoo is not of its order is past credit. The robin is much too intelligent. Why, then, does he feed the intruder? There is something here approaching to the sentiment of humanity, as we should call it, towards the fellow-creature.

The cuckoo remained in the cage for some time after it had attained sufficient size to shift for itself, but the robins did not desert it: they clearly understood that while thus confined it had no power of obtaining food and must starve. Unfortunately, a cat at last discovered the cuckoo, which was found on the ground dead but not eaten. The robins came to the spot afterwards—not with food, but as if they missed their charge.

The easy explanation of a blind instinct is not satisfactory to me. On the other hand, the doctrine of heredity hardly explains the facts, because how few birds’ ancestors can have had experience in cuckoo-rearing? There is no analogy with the cases of goats and other animals suckling strange species; because in those instances there is the motive—at all events in the beginning—of relief from the painful pressure of the milk. But the robins had no such interested motive: all their interests were to get rid of their visitor. May we not suppose, then, that what was begun through the operation of hereditary instinct, i.e., the feeding of the cuckoo, while still small and before the young robins had been ejected, was continued from an affection that gradually grew up for the helpless intruder? Higher sentiments than those usually attributed to the birds and beasts of the field may, I think, be traced in some of their actions.

To the number of those birds whose call is more or less apparently ventriloquial the partridge may be added; for when they are assembling in the evening at the roosting-place their calls in the stubble often sound some way to the right or left of the real position of the bird, which presently appears emerging from the turnips ten or fifteen yards farther up than was judged by the ear. It is not really ventriloquial, but caused by the rapid movements and by the circumstance of the bird being out of sight.

We constantly hear that the area of pasture in England is extending, and gradually overlapping arable lands; and the question suggests itself whether this, if it continues, will not have some effect upon bird and animal life by favouring those that like grass lands and diminishing those that prefer the ploughed. On and near ploughed lands modern agriculture endeavours to cut down trees and covers and grub up hedges, not only on account of their shade and the injury done by their roots, but because they are supposed to shelter sparrows and other birds. But pasture and meadow are favourable to hedges, trees, and covers: wherever there is much grass there is generally plenty of wood; and this again—if hedges and small covers extend in a corresponding degree with pasture—may affect bird life.

A young dog may be taught to hunt almost anything. Young pointers will point birds’ nests in hedges or trees, and discover them quicker than any lad. If a dog is properly trained, of course this is not allowed; but if not trained, after accompanying boys nesting once or twice they will enter into the search with the greatest eagerness. Labourers occasionally make caps of dog-skin, preserved with the hair on. Cats not uncommonly put a paw into the gins set for rabbits or rats. The sharp teeth break the bone of the leg, but if the cat is found and let out she will often recover—running about on three legs till the injured fore-foot drops off at the joint, when the stump heals up. Foxes are sometimes seen running on three legs and a stump, having met with a similar disaster. Cats contrive to climb some way up the perpendicular sides of wheat ricks after the mice.

The sparrows are the best of gleaners: they leave very little grain in the stubble. The women who go gleaning now make up their bundles in a clumsy way. Now, the old gleaners used to tie up their bundles in a clever manner, doubling the straw in so that it bound itself and enabled them to carry a larger quantity. Even in so trifling a matter there are two ways of doing it, but the ancient traditionary workmanship is dying out. The sheaves of corn, when set up in the field leaning against each other, bear a certain likeness to hands folded in prayer. By the side of cornfields the wild parsnip sometimes grows in great profusion. If dug up for curiosity the root has a strong odour, like the cultivated vegetable, but is small and woody. Everyone who has gathered the beautiful scarlet poppies must have noticed the perfect Maltese cross formed inside the broad petals by the black markings.

Beetles fly in the evening with such carelessness as to strike against people—they come against the face with quite a smart blow. Miserable beetles may sometimes be seen eaten almost hollow within by in numerable parasites. The labourers call those hairy caterpillars which curl in a circle ‘Devil’s rings’—a remnant of the old superstition that attributed everything that looked strange to demoniacal agency.

There is a tendency to variation even in the common buttercup. Not long since I saw one with a double flower; the petals of each were complete and distinct, the two flowers being set back to back on the top of the stalk. The stem of one of the bryonies withers up so completely that the shrinkage, aided by a little wind, snaps it. Then a bunch of red berries may be seen hanging from the lower boughs of a tree—a part of the stem, twined round, remaining there—the berries look as if belonging to the tree itself, the other part of the stem having fallen to the ground.

In clay soils the ivy does not attain any large size; but where there is some admixture of loam, or sand, it flourishes; I have seen ivy whose main stem growing up the side of an oak was five inches in diameter, and had some pretensions to be called timber. The bulrush, which is usually associated with water, does not grow in a great many brooks and ponds; in some districts it is even rare, and it requires a considerable search to find a group of these handsome rushes. Water-lilies are equally absent from certain districts. Elms do not seem to flourish near water; they do not reach any size, and a white, unhealthy-looking sap exudes from the trunk. Water seems, too, to check the growth of ash after it has reached a moderate size. Does the May bloom, which is almost proverbial for its sweetness, occasionally turn sour, as it were, before a thunderstorm? Bushes covered with this flower certainly emit an unpleasant smell sometimes quite distinct from the usual odour of the May.

The hedge is so intensely English and so mixed up in all popular ideas that it is no wonder it forms the basis of many proverbs and sayings—such as, ‘The sun does not shine on both sides of the hedge at once,’ ‘rough as a hedge,’ the verb ‘to hedge,’ and so on. Has any attempt ever been made to cultivate the earth-nut, pig-nut, or ground-nut, as it is variously called, which the ploughboys search for and dig up with their clasp-knives? It is found by the small slender stalk it sends up, and insignificant white flower, and lies a few inches below the surface: the ploughboys think much of it, and it seems just possible that cultivation might improve it.

Rare birds do not afford much information as a rule—seen for a short time only, it is difficult to discover much about them. I followed one of the rarer woodpeckers one morning for a long time, but notwithstanding all my care and trouble could not learn much of its ways.

Even among cows there are some rudiments of government. Those who tend them say that each cow in a herd has her master (or rather mistress), whom she is obliged to yield precedence to, as in passing through a gateway. If she shows any symptoms of rebellion the other attacks her with her horns until she flies. A strange cow turned in among a herd is at once attacked and beaten till she gets her proper place—finds her level—when she is left in peace. The two cows, however, when they have ascertained which is strongest, become good friends, and frequently lick each other with their rough tongues, which seems to give them much satisfaction.

Dogs running carelessly along beside the road frequently go sideways: one shoulder somewhat in front of the other, which gives the animal the appearance of being ever on the point of altering his course. The longer axis of the body is not parallel to the course he is following. Is this adopted for ease? Because, the moment the dog hears his master whistle, and rushes forward hastily, the sidelong attitude disappears.

Chapter Eighteen.

Snake-Lore—Snakes Swallowing Frogs—Swimming—Fond of Milk—Trapping Snakes—Frogs Climbing—Toads in Trees—The Brook—The Hatch—Kingfishers’ Haunts.

There are three kinds of snakes, according to the cottage people—namely, water snakes, grass snakes, and black snakes. The first frequent the brooks, ponds, and withy-beds; the second live in the mounds and hedges, and go out into the grass to find their prey; the third are so distinguished because of a darker colour. The cottage people should know, as they see so many during the summer; but they have simply given the same snake a different name because they notice it in different places. The common snake is, in fact, partial to the water, and takes to it readily. It does, however, seem to be correct that some individuals are of a blacker hue than the rest, and so have been supposed to constitute a distinct kind.

These creatures, like every other, have their favourite localities; and, while you may search whole fields in vain, along one single dry sandy bank you may sometimes find half a dozen, and they haunt the same spot year after year. So soon as the violets push up and open their sweet-scented flowers under the first warm gleams of the spring sunshine, the snake ventures forth from his hole to bask on the south side of the bank. In looking for violets it is not unusual to hear a rustling of the dead leaves that still strew the ground, and to see the pointed tail of a snake being dragged after him under cover.

In February there are sometimes a few days of warm weather (about the last week), and a solitary snake may perhaps chance to crawl forth; but they are not generally visible till later, and, if it be a cold spring, remain torpid till the wind changes. When the hedges have grown green, and the sun, rising higher in the sky, raises the temperature, even though clouds be passing over, the snakes appear regularly, but even then not till the sun has been up some hours. Later on they may occasionally be found coiled up in a circle two together on the bank.

In the summer some of them appear of great thickness—almost as big round as the wrist. These are the females, and are about to deposit their eggs. They may usually be noticed close to cow-yards. The cattle in summer graze in the fields and the sheds are empty; but there are large manure-heaps overgrown with weeds, and in these the snakes’ eggs are left. Rabbits are fond of visiting these cow-yards—many of which are at a distance from the farmstead—and sometimes bring forth a litter there.

When the mowers have laid the tall grass in swathes snakes are often found on them or under them by the haymakers, whose prongs or forks throw the grass about to expose a large surface to the sun. The haymakers kill them without mercy, and numbers thus meet with their fate. They vary very much in size—from eighteen inches to three feet in length. I have seen specimens which could not have been less than four feet long, and as thick as a rake-handle. That would be an exceptional case, but not; altogether rare. The labourers will tell you of much larger snakes, but I never saw one.

There is no subject, indeed, upon which they make such extraordinary statements, evidently believing what they say, as about snakes. A man told me once that he had been pursued by a snake, which rushed after him at such a speed that he could barely escape; the snake not only glided but actually leaped over the ground. Now this must have been pure imagination: he fancied he saw an adder, and fled, and in his terror thought himself pursued. They constantly state that they have seen adders; but I am confident that no viper exists in this district, nor for some miles round. That they do elsewhere of course is well known, but not here; neither is the slow-worm ever seen.

The belief that snakes can jump—or coil themselves up and spring—is, however, very prevalent. They all tell you that a snake can leap across a ditch. This is not true. A snake, if alarmed, will make for the hedge; and he glides much faster than would be supposed. On reaching the ‘shore’ or edge of the ditch he projects his head over it, and some six or eight inches of the neck, while the rest of the body slides down the slope. If it happens to be a steep-sided ditch he often loses his balance and rolls to the bottom; and that is what has been mistaken for leaping. As he rises up the mound he follows a zigzag course, and presently enters some small hole or a cavity in a decaying stole. After creeping in some distance he often meets with an obstruction, and has to remain half in and half out till he can force his way. He usually takes possession of a mouse-hole, and does not seem to be able to enlarge it for additional convenience. If you put your stick on his head as he slips through the grass his body rolls and twists, and almost ties itself in a knot.

I have never been able to find a snake in the actual process of divesting his body of the old skin, but have several times disturbed them from a bunch of grass and found the slough in it. There was an old wall, very low and somewhat ruinous, much overgrown with barley-like grasses, where I found a slough several times in succession, as if it had been a favourite resort for the purpose. The slough is a pale colour—there is no trace on it of the snake’s natural hue, and it has when fresh an appearance as if varnished—meaning not the brown colour of varnish, but the smoothness. A thin transparent film represents the eyes, so that the country folk say the snake skins his own eyes.

A forked stick is the best thing to catch a snake with: the fork pins the head to the ground without doing any injury. If held up by the tail—that is the way the country lads carry them—the snake will not let its head hang down, but holds it up as far as possible: he does not, however, seem able to crawl up himself, so to say; he is helpless in that position. If he is allowed to touch the arm he immediately coils round it. A snake is sometimes found on the roofs of cottages. The roof in such cases is low, and connected by a mass of ivy with the ground, overgrown too with moss and weeds.

The mowers, who sleep a good deal under the hedges, have a tradition that a snake will sometimes crawl down a man’s throat if he sleeps on the ground with his mouth open. There is also a superstition among the haymakers of snakes having been bred in the stomachs of human beings, from drinking out of ponds or streams frequented by water snakes. Such snakes—green, and in every respect like the field snake—have, according to them, been vomited by the unfortunate persons afflicted with this strange calamity. It is curious to note in connection with this superstition the ignorance of the real habits of these creatures exhibited by people whose whole lives are spent in the fields and by the hedges.

Now and then a peculiar squealing sound may be heard proceeding from the grass; on looking about it is found to be made by a frog in the extremity of mortal terror. A snake has seized one of his hind legs and has already swallowed a large part of it. The frog struggles and squeals, but it is in vain; the snake, if once he takes hold, will gradually get him down. I have several times released frogs from this horrible position; they hop off apparently unhurt if only the leg has been swallowed. But on one occasion I found a frog quite half gone down the throat of its dread persecutor: I compelled the snake to disgorge it, but the frog died soon afterwards. The frog being a broad creature, wide across the back—at least twice the width of the snake—it appears surprising how the snake can absorb so large a thing.

In the nesting season snakes are the terror of those birds that build in low bushes. I have never seen a snake in a tree (though I have heard of their getting up trees), but I have seen them in hawthorn bushes several feet from the ground, and apparently proceeding along the boughs with ease. I once found one in a bird’s nest: the nest was empty—the snake had doubtless had a feast, and was enjoying deglutition. In some places where snakes are numerous, boys when bird’s-nesting always give the nest a gentle thrust with a stick first before putting the hand in, lest they should grasp a snake instead of eggs. The snake is also accused of breaking and sucking eggs—some say it is the hard-set eggs he prefers; whether that be so or no, eggs are certainly often found broken and the yolk gone. When the young fledglings fall out of the nest on to the ground they run great risk from snakes.

When sitting in a punt in summer, moored a hundred yards or more from shore, I have often watched a snake swim across the lake, in that place about 300 yards wide. In the distance all that is visible is a small black spot moving steadily over the water. This is the snake’s head, which he holds above the surface, and which vibrates a little from side to side with the exertions of the muscular body. As he comes nearer a slight swell undulates on each side, marking his progress. Snakes never seem to venture so far from shore except when it is perfectly calm. The movement of the body is exactly the same as on land—the snake glides over the surface, the bends of its body seeming to act like a screw. They go at a good pace, and with the greatest apparent ease. In walking beside the meadow brooks, not everywhere, but in localities where these reptiles are common, every now and then you may see a snake strike off from the shore and swim across, twining in and out the stems of the green flags till he reaches the aquatic grass on the mud and disappears among it.

One warm summer’s day I sat down on the sward under an oak, and leaned my gun against it, intending to watch the movements of a pair of woodpeckers who had young close by. But the drowsy warmth induced slumber, and on waking—probably after the lapse of some time—I found a snake coiled on the grass under one of my legs. I kept perfectly still, being curious to see what the snake would do. He watched me with his keen eyes as closely as I watched him. So long as there was absolute stillness, he remained; the moment I moved, out shot his forked black tongue, and away he went into the ditch as rapidly as possible.

Some country people say they can ascertain if a hedge is frequented by snakes, by a peculiar smell: it is certain that if one is killed, especially if worried by a dog, there is an unpleasant odour. That they lie torpid during the winter is generally understood; but though I have kept an eye on the grubbing of many hedges for the purpose of observing what was found, I never saw a snake disturbed from his winter sleep. But that may be accounted for by their taking alarm at the jar and vibration of the earth under the strokes of the axe at the tough roots of thorn stoles and ash, and so getting away. Besides which it is likely enough that these particular hedges may not have been favourite localities with them. They are said to eat mice, and to enter dairies sometimes for the milk spilt on the flagstones of the floor. (Note 1.) They may often be found in the furrows in the meadows, which act as surface drains and are damp.

Frogs have some power of climbing. I have found them on the roofs of outhouses which were covered with ivy; they must have got up the ivy. Their toes are, indeed, to a certain degree prehensile, and they can cling with them. They sometimes make a low sound while in the ivy on such roofs; to my ear it sounds like a hoarse ‘coo.’ Cats occasionally catch frogs by the leg, and torment them, letting the creature go only to seize it again, and finally devouring it. The wretched creature squeals with pain and terror exactly as when caught by a snake.

No surer sign of coming rain than the appearance of the toad on the garden paths is known. Many cottage folk will still tell you that the hundreds and hundreds of tiny frogs which may sometimes be seen quite covering the ground fall from the sky, notwithstanding the fact that they do not appear during the rain, but a short time afterwards. And there are certain places where such crowds of these creatures may be oftener found than elsewhere. I knew one such place; it was a gateway where the clayey soil for some way round the approach had been trampled firm by the horses and cattle. This gateway was close to a slowly running brook, so slow as to be all but stagnant. Here I have seen legions of them on several occasions, all crowding on the ground worn bare of grass, as if they preferred that to the herbage.

Newts seem to prefer stagnant or nearly stagnant ponds, and are rarely seen in running water. Claypits from whence clay has been dug for brickmaking, and which are now full of water, are often frequented by them, as also by frogs in almost innumerable numbers in spring, when their croaking can be heard fifty yards away when it is still.

Labourers say that sometimes in grubbing out the butt of an old tree—previously sawn down—they have found a toad in a cavity of the solid wood, and look upon it as a great wonder. But such old trees are often hollow at the bottom, and the hollows communicate with the ditch, so that the toad probably had no difficulty of access. The belief in the venom of the toad is still current, and some will tell you that they have had sore places on their hands from having accidentally touched one.

They say, too, that an irritated snake, if it cannot escape, will strike at the hand and bite, though harmless. Snakes will, indeed, twist round a threatening stick; and, as it is evidently a motion induced by anger, the question arises whether they have some power of constriction. If so, it is slight. In summer a few snakes may always be found by the stream that runs through the fields near Wick Farm.

This brook, like many others, in its downward course is checked at irregular intervals by hatches, built for the purpose of forcing water out into the meadows, or up to ponds at some distance from the stream at which the cattle in the sheds drink. Sometimes the water is thus led up to a farmstead; sometimes the farmstead is situate on the very banks of the brook, and the hatch is within a few yards. Besides the moveable hatches, the stream in many places is crossed by bays (formed of piles and clay), which either irrigate adjacent meads or keep the water in ponds at a convenient level.

A lonely moss-grown hatch, which stands in a quiet shady corner not far from the lake, is a favourite resort of the kingfishers. Though these brilliantly coloured birds may often be seen skimming across the surface of the mere, they seem to obtain more food from the brooks and ponds than from the broader expanse of water above. In the brooks they find overhanging branches upon which to perch and watch for their prey, and without which they can do nothing. In the lake the only places where such boughs can be found are the shallow stretches where the bottom is entirely mud, and where the water is almost hidden by weeds. Willows grow there in great quantities, and some of their branches may be available; but then the water is hidden by weeds; and, being muddy at bottom, is not frequented by those shoals of roach the kingfisher delights to watch. So that the best places to look for this bird are on the streams which feed the mere (especially just where they enter it, for there the fish often assemble) and the streams that issue forth, not far from the main water.

This old hatch—it is so old and rotten that it is a little dangerous to cross it—is situate in the latter position, on the effluent, and is almost hidden among trees and bushes. Several hedges there meet, and form a small cover, in the midst of which flows the dark brook; but do not go near carelessly, for the bank is undermined by the water itself and by the water-rats, while the real edge is concealed by long coarse grasses. These water-rats are for ever endangering the bay: they bore their holes at the side through the bank from above and emerge below the hatch. Out of one such hole the water is now rushing, and if it is not soon stopped will wear away the soil and escape in such quantities as to lower the level behind the hatch. These little beaver-like creatures are not, therefore, welcome near hatches and dams.

If you approach the cover quietly and step over the decayed pole that has been placed to close a gap, by carefully parting the bushes the kingfisher may be seen in his favourite position. The old pole must not be pressed in getting over it, or the willow ‘bonds’ or withes with which it is fastened to a tree each side of the gap will creak, and the pole itself may crack, and so alarm the bird. The kingfisher perches on the narrow rail that crosses the hatch about two feet above the water.

Another perch to which he removes now and then is formed by a branch, dead and leafless, which projects across a corner of the bubbling pool below. He prefers a rail or a dead branch, because it gives him a clearer view and better facilities for diving and snatching up his prey as it swims underneath him. His azure back and wings and ruddy breast are not equalled in beauty of colour by any bird native to this country. The long pointed beak looks half as long as the whole bird: his shape is somewhat wedge-like, enlarging gradually from the point of the beak backwards. The cock bird has the brightest tints.

In this pool scooped out by the falling water swim roach, perch, and sticklebacks, and sometimes a jack; but the jack usually abides near the edge out of the swirl. Roach are here the kingfisher’s most common prey. He chooses those about four inches long by preference, and ‘daps’ on them the moment they come near enough to the surface. But he will occasionally land a much larger fish, perhaps almost twice the size, and will carry it to some distance, being remarkably powerful on the wing for so small a bird. The fish is held across the beak, but in flying it sometimes seems to be held almost vertically; and if that is really the case, and not an illusion caused by the swiftness of the flight, the bird must carry its head then a little on one side. If he is only fishing for his own eating, he does not carry his prey farther than a clear place on the bank. A terrace made by the runs of the water-rat is a common table for him, or the path leading to the hatch where it is worn smooth and bare by footsteps. But he prefers to devour his fish either close to the water or in a somewhat open place, and not too near bushes; because while thus on the ground he is not safe. When feeding his young he will carry a fish apparently as long as himself a considerable distance.

One summer I went several days in succession to a hedge two fields distant from the nearest brook, and hid on the mound with a gun. I had not been there long before a kingfisher flew past, keeping just dear of the hedge, but low down and close under the boughs of the trees, and going in a direction which would not lead to a brook or pond. This seemed curious; but presently he came back again, uttering the long whistle which is his peculiar note. About an hour, perhaps less, elapsed when he returned again, this time carrying something in his beak that gleamed white and silvery in the sun—a fish. The next day it was the same, and the next. The kingfisher, or rather two of them, went continually to and fro, and it was astonishing what a number of fish they took. Never more than an hour, often less, elapsed without one or other going by. The fish varied much in size, sometimes being very small.

They had a nest, of course, somewhere; but being under the idea that they always built near brooks or in the high banks often seen at the back of ponds, it was difficult for me to imagine where the nest could be. To all appearance they flew straight through a small opening in another hedge, at the corner of the two in fact, about two hundred yards distant. Presently it occurred to me that this might be an illusion, that the birds did not really pass through the hedge, but had a nest somewhere in that corner.

Just in the very angle was an old disused sawpit, formed by enlarging the ditch, and made some years before for the temporary convenience of sawing up a few heavy ‘sticks’ of timber that were thrown thereabouts. The sawpit, to prevent accidents to cattle, was roughly covered over with slabs of wood, which practically roofed it in, and of course darkened the interior. It was in this sawpit that the kingfishers had their nest in what appeared to be a hole partly excavated by a rabbit. The distance from the hatch and brook was about 400 yards, so that the parent birds had to carry the fish they captured nearly a quarter of a mile. The sawpit, too, was close to a lane used a good deal, though sheltered by a thick hedge from the observation of those who passed.

In another case I knew of, the kingfishers built in a mound overhanging a small stagnant and muddy pond, in which there were no fish, and which was within twenty paces of a farmhouse. The house was situate on a hill about three hundred yards from the nearest running stream. This little pond was full in wet weather only, and was constantly used by the horses, the cattle in the field that came almost up to the door, and by the tame ducks. Beside the pond was a wood-pile, and persons were constantly passing it to and fro. Yet the kingfishers built there and reared their young; and this not only for one season, but for several years in succession. They had to bring all the fish they captured up from the brook, over the garden, and to pass close to the house. Why they should choose such a place is not easily explained, seeing that so many apparently more suitable localities were open to them along the course of the stream.

One summer I found a family of four young kingfishers perched in a row on a dead branch crossing a brook which ran for some distance beside a double-mound hedge. There was a hatch just there too, forcing the water into two ponds, one each side of the mound. The brook had worn itself a deep channel, and so required a hatch to bring it up to a level convenient for cattle. I had known for some time that there was a nest in that mound from the continued presence of the two old birds; but could not find it. But when the young could fly a little they appeared on this branch projecting almost over the falling water, and there they took up their station day after day. Every now and then the parents came with small fish, which they caught farther down the brook, for just in that place there were only a few perch and perhaps a tench or two. The colours are much less brilliant on the young birds, and they do not obtain the deep rich hues of their parents until the following spring. I have shot many young birds in the winter; they are by that time much improved in colour, but may be distinguished without difficulty from the full-grown bird.

Though so swift, the kingfisher is comparatively easy to shoot, because he flies as straight as an arrow; and if you can get clear of bushes or willow pollards he may be dropped without trouble. When disturbed the kingfisher almost invariably flies off in one favourite direction; and this habit has often proved fatal to him, because the sportsman knows exactly which way to look, and carries his gun prepared. Wherever the kingfisher’s haunt may be, he will be found upon observation to leave it nearly always in the same direction day after day. He is, indeed, a bird with fixed habits, though apparently wandering aimlessly along the streams. I soon found it possible to predict beforehand in which haunt a kingfisher would be discovered at any time.

By noting the places frequented by these birds you know where the shoals of small fish lie, and may supply yourself with bait for larger fish. Often one of those great hawthorn bushes that hang over a brook is a favourite spot. The roots of trees and bushes loosen the soil, and deeper holes are often found under them than elsewhere, to which the fish resort. These hawthorn bushes, though thick and impenetrable above, are more open below just over the water; and there the kingfisher perches, and has also the advantage of being completely hidden from observation: if he only remained still in such places he would escape notice altogether. When passing such a bush on the qui vive for snipe, how many times have I seen a brilliant streak of azure shoot out from the lower branches and watched a kingfisher skim across the meadow, rising with a piping whistle over the distant hedge! Near millponds is a favourite place with these birds.

To that hatch which stands on the effluent brook not far from the mere a coot or two comes now and then at night or in the early morning. These birds, being accused of devouring the young fry, are killed whenever they are met, and their eggs taken in order to prevent their increase; that is, of course, where the water is carefully preserved. Here they are not so persistently hunted. I have seen coots, and moorhens too, venture some distance up the dark arch of a culvert. Moorhens are fond of bridges and frequently feed under them. When alarmed, after diving, the moorhen does not always come right up to the surface, but merely protrudes its head to breathe.

One day I startled a moorhen in a shallow pond; instantly the bird dived, and I watched to see where it would come up, knowing that the moorhen cannot stay long under water, while there chanced to be scarcely any bushes or cover round the edge. After waiting some time, and wondering what had become of the bird, I fancied I saw some duckweed slightly agitated. Looking more carefully, it seemed as if there was something very small moving now and then just there—the spot was not more than fifteen yards distant. It was as if the beak of a bird, the body and most of the head quite hidden and under water, were picking or feeding among the duckweed. This continued for some few minutes, when I shot at the spot, and immediately a moorhen rose to the surface. As the pond was very shallow the bird must have stood on the bottom, and so resumed its feeding with the beak just above the surface.

Note 1. An extraordinary instance of this has been very kindly communicated to me by the writer of the following letter:—

“Kingston Vicarage, Wareham, Dorset, October 27, 1878.

“Dear Sir—Apropos of your reference to the notion that snakes drink milk, I think it may interest you to hear of a curious instance of this which occurred near here about three months ago. At Kingswood, the home farm of Kempstone (Mr J.H. Calcraft’s place, near Corfe Castle), the dairyman noticed that something seemed to enter the dairy through a hole in the wall and take the milk. Thinking it was a mouse or rat, he set a common gin at the hole, and caught a snake every day until he had caught seventeen! Mr Calcraft would corroborate this. My informant is Mr Bankes, rector of Corfe Castle, who heard it from the dairyman himself.

“Faithfully yours,

“S.C. Spencer Smith.”

Chapter Nineteen.

Course of the Brook—The Birds’ Bathing-Place—Roach—Jack on their Journeys—The Stickleback’s Nest—Woodcock—The Lake—Herons—Mussels—Reign of Terror in the Lake.

A place where the bank of the brook has been dug away so as to form a sloping approach to the water, in order that cattle may drink without difficulty, is much visited by birds in summer. Some cartloads of small stones originally thrown down to make a firm floor to the drinking-place have in process of time become worn into sand, which the rain has washed into the water. This has helped to form a more than usually sandy bottom to the water just there. Then a bank of mud, or little eyot in the centre of the stream, thickly overgrown with flags, divides the current in two, and the swiftest section passes by the drinking-place and brings with it more sand washed out from the mud; so that just at the edge there is a floor of fine sand covered with water, which six inches from shore is hardly an inch deep. This is just the bathing-place in which birds delight, and here they come, accordingly, all the summer through, day after day.

Sparrows, starlings, finches (including the beautiful goldfinches), blackbirds, and so on, are constantly to and fro. Often several of different species are bathing together. The wagtails, of course, are there. The wagtail wades into the water and stands there. Sometimes he has the appearance of scraping the bottom with his feet, as if to find food. Blackbirds are especially fond of this spot, and may be seen coming to it from the adjacent hedges. They like water, and frequently feed near it; a blackbird may often be found under the great hawthorn bushes which overhang the stream. Hawks may be seen occasionally following the course of the brook or perched on the trees that grow near; they are doubtless aware of the partiality for water shown by so many birds.

The fish have their own favourite places, as the birds in the hedge, and after leaving the hatch there are none for some distance. Then the brook suddenly curves and forms a loop, returning almost upon itself something like the letter 12. The tongue of land thus enclosed is broad at the top, and but two or three yards across at the bottom. There the current on either side is for ever endeavouring to eat away the narrow neck, and forms two deep pools. Some few piles have been driven in on one side to check the process of disintegration, and a willow tree overhangs the pool there. By lying on the grass and quietly looking over the brink, the roach may be seen swimming in the deeper part, and where it shallows up stream is a perch waiting for what may come down. Where the water runs slowly on account of a little bay, there, in semi-darkness under the banks on the mud, are a few tench.

There are several jacks not far off; but, though they prey on the roach, it is noticeable that, unless driven by some one passing by, they rarely go into these deep holes. The jack lies in shallower water and keeps close to the shore under shelter of the flags, or concealed behind the weeds. It is as if he understood that every now and then the shoal of roach will pass round the curve—going from one pool to the other—when they have to swim through the shallower water. Sometimes a solitary fish will shift quarters like this, and must go by the jack lying in ambush.

At the top of the tongue of land (which is planted with withy) another brook joins the first: this brook is very deep, and all but stagnant. In the quiet back-water here—close to and yet out of the swifter stream—is another haunt of the jack.

If alarmed, he does not swim straight up or down the centre of the current but darts half-a-dozen yards in a slanting direction across the stream and hides under another floating weed. Then, if started afresh, he makes another zigzag, and conceals himself once more. At first he remains till you could touch him, if you tried, with a long stick; but at every remove he grows more suspicious, till at last as you approach he is off immediately.

Jacks lie a great deal in the still deep ponds that open off the brook or are connected with it by a deep ditch; they have been known to find their way up to a pond from the brook through a subterranean pipe which supplied it with water. Those that remain in the ponds are usually much larger than those found in the stream: these are often small—say, a pound to two pounds in weight. In the spawning season, however, they come out from the ponds and go up the brook in pairs or trios. They keep close together side by side—the largest in the centre when there are three. The brook at that time seems full of jacks; and to any one who has been accustomed to stroll along it is surprising where they all come from.

Although the jacks lie in the quiet ponds most of the time, yet some of them travel about a great deal, especially the smaller ones ranging from one to two pounds. These will leap a bay or dam if it interrupts their voyaging down the stream. I have seen a young jack, about a foot long, leap over a bay, and fall three or four feet on to the stony floor below, the stones scarcely covered with water. The jack shot himself perhaps two feet, and fell on his side on the stones; there he lay quietly a minute or so, and then gave a bound up, and, lighting in the current, went down with it. A small jack like this will sometimes go out into the irrigated meadows, following the water-carriers for a long distance.

In quiet, sheltered places, where the water is clear but does not run too swiftly, the ‘minnie,’ as the stickleback is locally called, makes its nest beside the bank. A small hole in the sand is excavated, and in this are laid a number of tiny fibres such as are carried along by the stream, resembling a miniature faggot. On these fibres the ova are deposited, and they are then either purposely partly covered with sand by the minnie, or else the particles that are brought down by the current gather over the bundle of fibres and conceal it, excepting one small spot. There several of the slender roots seem to slightly project, and they are kept clear of mud or sand so as to answer the purpose of a doorway. I have watched these operations many times, but never saw the minnie attempt to enter the nest; indeed, he could not have done, so, the opening not being large enough.

When the nest has reached this stage of completion it is easy to discover, because the stickleback keeps watch before it, and at that season his breast is of a bright crimson hue. He guards the nest with the greatest care, and if he is tempted away for a minute by some morsel of food he is back again immediately. If a tiny twig or fibre comes along and threatens to catch against the nest, he removes it in his mouth, carrying it out into the stream that it may be swept away. He also removes the sand whenever it begins to accumulate overmuch. It would seem as if a current of fresh water were essential to the ova, and that that is why the opening of the nest is so carefully kept from becoming choked up. After a while the fry come forth—the most minute creatures imaginable, mere lines about half the length of the fingernail. They play round the opening, and will retreat within if alarmed.

Where the brook passes under a bridge of some size the current divides to go through several small arches. There is here some fall, and the stream is swift and bright, chafing round and bubbling over stones. Here the ‘miller’s thumbs’ are numerous—a bottom fish growing to about four inches in length, and with a head enormously broad and large in proportion to its body. They rarely rise from the mud or sand; they hide behind stones, their heads buried in the sand, but their tails in sight. Every now and then they change positions, swimming swiftly over the bottom to another spot. Their voracity is very great, and they often disappoint the angler by taking his bait. The cottage people are said to eat them.

The ‘stwun loach’—stone loach, as the lads call it—hides also behind and under stones, and may be caught by hand. These loach are apparently capricious in their habits; certain spots abound with them, in others you may search the stream in vain for a long distance. So, too, with the gudgeon: I noticed in one brook I frequently passed that they never came up beyond one particular bend, though there was no apparent difference in the soil or in the stream itself. In the brook the jack do not seem to care much about them; but in the lake above there are no gudgeon, and there a gudgeon is a fatal bait. Nothing is so certain to take; the gudgeon will tempt the pike there when an ordinary roach may be displayed before him without the slightest effect.

A flood which brings down a large quantity of suspended mud and sand discolouring the water attracts the fish: they are looking for food. But too much mud compels them to shift their quarters. This is well known to those who net the stream. They stretch the net across the brook a few yards below a bridge or short culvert—places much haunted by fish. Then the bottom of the stream above the culvert is thoroughly stirred up with a pole till the water is thick with mud, and this, passing through the culvert (where the pole cannot be used and the fish would otherwise be safe), forces them to descend the stream and enter the net. Probably they attempt to swim up stream first, but are deterred by the pole thrust under the water, and then go down. It is said that even eels, who like mud, will move if the volume of mud sent through is thick enough and continued sufficiently long.

The fact that a little stirring of the bottom attracts fish is made use of along the Thames to attract bait for those night-lines which are the detestation of the true angler. The bait catcher has a long pole, at the end of which are iron teeth like a rake. With this he rakes up the mud, waits a few seconds, and then casts a net, which generally brings some minnows or other small fish to shore. These fish are then placed in a bucket, and finally go on the night-lines.

The ditches as they open on the brook are the favourite resorts of all aquatic life, and there most of the insects, beetles, etc, that live in the water may be discovered. They form, too, one of the last resorts of the reeds; these beautiful plants have been much diminished in quantity by the progress of agriculture. One or two great mounds by the brook can show a small bed still, and here and there a group grows at the mouth of these deep ditches, on the little delta formed of the sand, mud, and decaying twigs brought down. I have cut them fifteen feet in length. Some people, attracted by the beauty of the feathery heads of these reeds, come a considerable distance to get them. I have made pens of them: it is possible to write with such pens, and they are softer than quills, but on account of that softness quickly wear out.

A woodcock may occasionally be flushed from such a ditch in winter. Woodcocks are fond of those ditches down which there always trickles a tiny thread of water—hardly so much as would be understood by the term streamlet—coming from a little spring which even in severe frosts is never frozen. Ever when the running brook is frozen such little spring: are free of ice, and so, too, is the streamlet for some distance.

From the bed of the brook proper the reeds are gone—they have taken refuge in nooks and corners. This is probably accounted for by the periodical cleaning out of the brook—not annually, but every now and then, in order to prevent the flooding which would be caused by the accumulation of mud and sand. The roots of the flags seem to withstand this rod: treatment; but many other water plants cannot, and are consequently only found in places which have not been disturbed for many years.

There is as much difference in ponds as in hedges, so far as inhabitants are concerned. Many fields and hedges seem comparatively deserted, while others are full of birds; and so of several ponds which do not apparently vary much—one is a favourite haunt of fish, and another has not got a single fish in it. One pond particularly used to attract my attention, because it seemed devoid of any kind of life: not even a stickleback could be found in it, though they will live in the smallest ditches, and this pond was fed by a brook in which there were fish. Not even a newt lived in it—it was a miniature Dead Sea. Another pond was remarkable for innumerable water-snails. When the wind blew hard they sometimes lined the lee shore to which they had drifted.

The herons are at the same time the largest and most regular visitors to the mere out of which the brook flows. One or more may generally be found there at some time of the day all the year round; but there is a remarkable diminution in their numbers during the nesting season. The nearest heronry must be about thirty miles distant, which probably explains their absence at that time. It also happens that just before the summer begins the mere is usually at its greatest height; the water is deep almost everywhere, and there are fewer places where the herons could fish with success.

They fly at a great height in the air, and a single stroke of the huge wings seems to propel the bird a long distance; so that though at first sight they appear to move very slowly, the eye being deceived by the slow stroke of the wings, they really go at a good pace. They do not seem to have any regular hours of visiting the lake—though more seem to arrive in the afternoon—but they have distinct lines of flight along which they may be expected to come. In winter, however, they show more regularity, going down from the lake to the water-meadows in the evening, and returning in the early morning—that is, supposing the lake to be open and free from ice. If the shores are frozen a heron or two may be found in the water-meadows all day.

In the autumn, after a dry summer, is the best time to watch them. The water is then low; numerous small islands appear, and long narrow sandbanks run out fifty or sixty yards with shoals on either side. After a very dry season the level of the water is so much reduced that in the broadest (and shallowest) part the actual strand where the water begins is a hundred yards or more from the nearest hedge. This is just what the heron likes, because no one can approach him over that flat expanse of dried mud without being immediately detected. I have seen as many as eight herons standing together in a row on one such narrow sandbank in the daytime, in regular order like soldiers: there were six more on adjacent islands. They were not feeding—simply standing motionless. As soon as it grew dark they dispersed, and ventured then down the lake to those places near which footpaths passed.

But although the night seems the heron’s principal feeding time, he frequently fishes in the day. Generally, his long neck enables him to see danger, but not always. Several times I have come right on a heron, when the banks of the brook were high and the bushes thick, before he has seen me, so as to be for the moment within five yards. His clumsy terror is quite ludicrous: try how he will he cannot fly fast at starting; he requires fifty yards to get properly underway.

What a contrast with the swift snipe, that darts off at thirty miles an hour from under your feet! The long hanging legs, the stretched-out neck, the wide wings and body, seem to offer a mark which no one could possibly miss: yet, with an ordinary gun and snipe-shot, I have had a heron get away safely like this more than once. You can hear the shot rattle up against him, and he utters a strange, harsh, screeching ‘quaack,’ and works his wings in mortal fright, but presently gets half-way up to the clouds and sails away in calm security. His neck then seems to drop down in a bend, the head being brought back as he settles to his flight, so that the country people say the heron often carries a snake.

The mark he offers to shot is much less than would be supposed; he is all length and no breadth; the body is very much smaller than it looks. But if you can stalk him in the brook till within thirty or forty yards, and can draw ‘a bead’ on his head as he lifts it up every now and then to glance over the banks, then you have him easily; a very small knock in the head being sufficient to stop him.

The tenacity of life exhibited by the heron is something wonderful: though shot in the head, and hung up as dead, a heron will sometimes raise his neck several hours afterwards. To wring the neck is impossible—it is like leather or a strong spiral spring: you cannot break it, so that the only way to put the creature out of pain is to cut the artery; and even then there are signs of muscular contraction for some time. A labourer once asked me for a heron that I had shot; I gave it to him, and he cooked it. He said he boiled it eight hours, and that it was not so very fishy! But even he could not manage the neck part.

This bird must have a wonderful power of sight to catch its prey at night, and out of some depth of water. In severe winter weather, when the lake is frozen, herons evidently suffer much. Most of them leave, probably for the rivers which do not freeze till the last; but one or two linger about the water-meadows till they seem to despair of catching anything; and will alight in the centre of a large pasture field where there is no water, and stand there for hours disconsolate. I suspect that the herons in winter time that come to the ponds do so for the fish which lie at the bottom on the mud packed close together, that is, when the water is not deep. It is said that when ice protects the fish herons eat the frogs in the water-meadows; but they can scarcely find many, for though I have been over the water-meadows day after day for snipe, I seldom saw a frog about them here.

When the level of the mere, after a peculiarly dry season, is very low, is also a good time to observe the habits of many other creatures. There are always one or more crows about the neighbourhood of the lake; but at such times a dozen or so may be seen busily at work along the shore. They prey on the mussels, of which there are great numbers in the lake. Anyone passing by the water when it is so shallow can hardly fail to notice long narrow grooves in the sand of the bottom. These grooves begin near the edge—perhaps within a foot of it—and then run out into the deeper part. By following these with the eye, the mussel may often be seen in a foot or two of water—sometimes open, but more generally closed. The groove in the sand is caused by the keel of the shell as the creature moves.

There are hundreds of these tracks; the majority appear to run from shallow to deep water, but there are others crossing and showing where the mussel has travelled. One may occasionally be seen in the act of moving itself, and making the groove in the sand. But they seem as a rule to move most at night, and to approach the shore closest in the darkness. In the deep water they are safe; but near the edge the crows pounce on them and may be seen peering about almost all day long.

Besides those that are eaten on the shore, numbers of mussels are carried up on the rising ground where the turf is short and the earth hard. Until stepped on and broken, the two halves of the shell are usually complete, and generally still attached, showing that the crow has split the shell open skilfully. They range from two or three to nine inches in length. The largest are much less common; those of five or six inches are numerous. Some of the old-fashioned housewives use a nine-inch mussel-shell, well cleaned, as a ladle for their sugar jars.

Now and then, at long intervals, an exceptionally dry season so lowers the level of the mere that all the shallower parts become land, and are even passable on foot, though in places quicksands and deep fine mud must be carefully avoided. The fish that previously could enjoy a swim of some three-quarters of a mile are then forced to retire to one deep hole only a few acres in extent. Now commences a reign of terror, of which it is difficult to convey an adequate idea.

These waters have not been netted for years, and consequently both pike and perch have increased to an extraordinary degree, and many of them have attained huge proportions. Pike of six pounds are commonly caught; eight, ten, twelve, and fourteen pound fish have often been landed. There was a tradition of a pike that weighed a quarter of a hundredweight but one day the tradition was put into the shade by the capture of a pike that scaled a little over thirty pounds. There are supposed to be several more such monsters of the deep, since every now and then some labourer passing by on a sunny day, when jack approach the shore and bask near the surface, declares that he has seen one as big as a man’s leg. But about the vast number of ordinary-sized jack there can be no doubt at all; since anyone may see them who will stroll by the water’s edge on a bright warm day, taking care to walk slowly and not to jar the ground or let his shadow fall on the water before he can glance round the willows and bushes. Jack may then be seen basking by the weeds.

When an exceptionally long continuance of dry weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they please with the other fish, and the roach especially suffer. Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping into the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface which shows the course they take. This wave never ceases: as soon as it sinks here it rises yonder, and so on through the twenty-four hours, day and night.

The miserable fish, flying for their lives, speed towards the shallow water, and often, unable to stop themselves, are carried by their impetus out on the mud and lie there on the land for a few seconds till they leap back again. Even the jack will sometimes run himself aground in the eagerness of his pursuit. Looking over the pool, the splash of the falling fish as they descend after the leap into the air may be heard in several directions at once, and the glint of their silvery sides in the sunshine is at the same time visible. At night it is clear the same thing is going forward, for the splashing continues, though the wave raised by the panic-stricken crowds cannot be distinguished in the darkness.

It is curious to notice how the solitary disposition of the jack shows itself almost as soon as he comes to life. While the fry of most other fish swim in shoals, sometimes in countless numbers, the tiny jack, hardly so long as one’s little finger, lurks all alone behind a stone which forms a miniature harbour. On a warm day almost every such place has its youthful pirate. Notwithstanding the terror of the roach when pursued, they will play about apparently without the slightest fear when the pike is basking in the sun with his back all but on a level with the surface—that is, when the lake is at its ordinary height. It is as if they knew their tyrant was enjoying his siesta.

These roach literally swarm. At their spawning time that part of the lake the shore of which is stony is positively black with them. For a distance of some hundred and fifty yards the water for seven or eight feet from shore is simply a moving mass of roach. They crowd up against the stones, get underneath them and behind them, enter every little creek and interstice, and are so jammed by their own numbers that they may easily be caught by hand. In their anxiety to secure a place they crush against each other and splash up the water. This impulse only lasts a day or two in its full vigour, when the multitude gradually retires into deeper water.

When thus spawning the roach are preyed on by rats—not the water-rat, but the house or drain rat. There are always a few of these about the lake, and they grow to an enormous size. They destroy the roach in great numbers. I have seen the sand strewn with dead fish opposite and leading up to their holes; for they catch and kill many more than they can eat, or even have time to carry away. I have shot at these great rascals when they have been swimming fifty yards from shore, and I strongly suspect them of visiting the nests of moorhens and other waterfowl with felonious purposes. They catch fish at any time they see a chance, but are most destructive during the spawning season, because then the roach come within reach. Such rats, too, haunt the ditches and mounds, and are as dangerous to all kinds of game as any weasel, crow, or hawk.

Tench lie in the deep muddy holes. With the exception of the tench, the greater number of the fish in this mere haunt the sandy and stony shores. When the lake is full there are broad stretches of water which are shallow and where the bottom is mud. You may look here in vain for fish: of course there are some; but as you glide over noiselessly in a punt, gazing down into the water as you drift before the gentle summer breeze, you will not see any of those shoals that frequent the other shores where the bottom is clearer. Other favourite places are where the brooks run in and where there are sudden shallows in the midst of deep water. The contour and character of the bottom seem to affect the habits of fish to a large extent; consequently those who are aware of the form of the bottom are usually much more successful as fishermen.

Chapter Twenty.

Wildfowl of the Lake—Sea Birds—Drift Wood—Forces of Nature at Work—Waves—Evaporation—An Eagle—Frost and Snow—Effect on Birds and Animals—Water-Meadows—Shooting Stars—Phosphorescence—Waterspout—Noises ‘in the Air.’

The ‘summer snipe,’ or sandpiper, comes to the lake regularly year after year, and remains during the warm months. About a dozen visit the shallow sandy reaches running along the edge of the water, when disturbed flying off just above the surface with a plaintive piping cry. They describe a semicircle, and come back to the shore a hundred yards farther on; and will do this as many times as you like to put them up. Sometimes they feed in little parties of two or three: sometimes alone. No other place for some distance is visited by the sandpiper: none of the ponds, or brooks; only the lake.

In summer but a few species of birds remain on this piece of water. Only two or three wild ducks stay to breed: their nests are not found on the mere itself, but in the ponds adjacent. One small pond fed by the lake and communicating with it—dug where the muddy shore would otherwise prevent cattle approaching the shallow water—a quiet spot almost surrounded by bushes, is a favourite nesting-place. The brooks that run in are occasionally used by ducks in the same way, and one of the large ditches which is full of flags and rushes and well sheltered is now and then selected. But the ducks do not breed in any number, though they used to do so within living memory.

The coots cannot be overlooked in spring; they chase each other to and fro over the surface in the liveliest manner, and their nests are common. Moorhens, of course, are here in numbers. Why is it that they never seem to learn wisdom in placing their nests? Whether in the lake, in the ponds, or brooks, they exhibit the same lack of foresight as to changes of level in the water; so that frequently their nests are quite drowned out. Occasionally in the brooks the nest is floated bodily down the stream by a sudden rise. These mishaps they might easily avoid by placing them a little higher up the bank.

In the lake there are several acres of withy bushes which when the water is low are on dry land, but in spring and early summer stand five or six feet deep. This is a favourite nesting-place with the coots: and they show the same neglect of the teachings of experience; for their nests are placed almost on the water, and if it rises, as it often does, they are flooded.

It is said that otters used to come to the mere many years ago; but they have never done so lately, though stories of their having been seen are frequent. One summer the story was so positive and so often repeated that I made a thorough search, and found that it originated in the motions of a large diving bird. This bird swam under water with wonderful rapidity, and often close to the surface, so that it raised a wave and could be traced by it. This was the supposed otter. The bird was afterwards shot, but its exact species does not seem to have been satisfactorily ascertained. Several kinds of divers, however, have without doubt been killed. Grebes are often shot.

Occasionally sea birds come—particularly a species locally called the ‘sea-swallow,’ which frequently appears after rough winds and remains flying about over the water for a week or more. Six or eight of these are sometimes seen at once. The common gull comes at irregular intervals, generally in the winter or spring; it is said to foretell rough weather. Occasionally a gull will stay some time, and I have seen them also in the water-meadows. Considering the distance from the sea, the gull cannot be called an uncommon bird here.

Towards winter the wild ducks return; and during all the cold months a flock of them, varying in number, remains. They are careful to swim during the day in the centre of the very widest part of the lake, far out of gunshot; at night they land, or feed along the shore. Teal, and sometimes widgeon also, visit the place. Once now and then wildfowl come in countless numbers: it is said to be when they are driven south by severe weather. On one occasion I saw the lake literally black—they almost covered it for a length of half a mile and a breadth of about a quarter. It was a sight not to be quickly forgotten; and the noise of their wings as vast parties every now and then rose and wheeled around was something astonishing. They only stayed a few days.

How many times I have endeavoured to trace the V said to be formed by duck while flying, and failed to detect it! They fly, it is true, in some sort of order, but those that come to the mere here travel rather in a row, or line, slanting forwards, something like what military men call in echelon. The teal seem much bolder than the wild duck: they are often shot as they rise out of the brooks; but the ducks very rarely go to the brooks at all, and can still more rarely be approached when they do. They swim in the water-carriers in the great irrigated meadows, but are careful to remain far out of range; so that the only way to shoot them by day is for two or more sportsmen to post themselves behind the hedges in different places while a third drives them up.

The first snipes are seen generally in the arable lands, afterwards round the lake—the muddy shores by choice—and finally in the brooks. As the winter advances they seem to quit the lake in great part and go down to the 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 imaginable. 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 mare’s-tails lying about; for their stems are hollow, and have knots at regular intervals.

After a continuance of the wind in one quarter for a few days—south or south-west—the opposite shores are lined with such weeds carried across, together with great quantities of dead branches fallen from the trees and willows. So that on a small scale the same thing happens as with the drift wood of the ocean; and, indeed, by studying the action of natural forces as exhibited in our own pools and brooks, it becomes much easier to comprehend the gigantic operations by which the surface of the earth is altered.

For instance, the north-eastern edge of the water is continually encroaching on the land, eating away the sandy soil, showing that the prevalent winds are south and west. The waves, thrown against the shore with the force they have acquired in rolling six or seven hundred yards, wash away the earth and undermine the bank, forming a miniature cliff or precipice, the face of which is always concave, projecting a little at the foot and also at the top. So much is this the case that an unwary person walking too near the edge may feel the sward suddenly yield and find it necessary to scramble off before a few hundredweights of earth subside into the water.

In this process the loamy part of the earth is dissipated, or rather held in suspension, while the small stones and ultimately the heavier sand fall to the bottom and form the sandy floor preferred by the fish. The loam discolours the water during a storm for several yards out to sea, so to say; so that in a boat passing by you know by the hue of the waves when you are approaching the dangers of the cliffs. This continuous eating away of the earth proceeds so fast that an old hollow oak tree now stands—at what may be called the high tide of summer—so far from the strand that a boat may pass between.

Like a wooden island the old oak rears itself up in the midst; the waves break against it, and when there is but a ripple the sunlight glancing on the water is reflected back, and plays upon the rugged trunk, illuminating it with a moving design as the wavelets roll in. The water is so shallow at the edge that the shadows of the ridges of the waves follow each other over the sandy floor. They reflect the bright rays upon the tree trunk, where they weave a beautiful lacelike pattern—beneath, their own shadows glide along the sand. That sand, too, is arranged by the ripple in slightly curved lines. These wave-marks, though so slight that with the hand you may level fifty at a sweep, have yet sometimes proved durable enough to tell the student after many centuries where water once has been. Under the foundations of some of the oldest churches—the monks loved to build near water—the wave-mark has been found on the original soil.

In a hollow of the old oak starlings have made their nest and reared their young in safety for several seasons. They seem to understand that the water gives them protection, for their nest would not be out of reach were the tree on land.

Just as at the seashore the wave curls over in an arch as it comes in before dissolving in surf and spray, so here when a gale is blowing, these lesser waves, as they reach the shelving strand, also curl over. In the early morning, as the sun begins to acquire some strength, the white mists sweep over the surface and visibly melt and disappear. One hot summer, when the lake was full, and kept so artificially by the hatches and dams, I found by observation that its level sank nearly half an inch every day. This was the more striking because there was at the same time an influx more than enough to repair the loss from leakage. Now the evaporation of half an inch of water over such a width of surface meant the ascension into the atmosphere of many thousands of gallons; and thus even this insignificant pool might form a cloud of some magnitude in a few days. What immense vapours may then arise from the surface of the ocean!

Sometimes a winter’s morning is, I think, almost as beautiful as summer, when the ice is thick with the sharp frost, and the sun shines in a blue sky free from clouds. One such morning, while putting on my skates, I happened to look up, and was surprised to see a bird of unusual appearance, and large size, soaring slowly overhead. I immediately recognised an eagle; and that was the solitary occasion on which I ever saw one here. The bird remained in sight some time, and finally left, going south-east towards the sun.

On the afternoon of the day before the beginning of the frost the wind gradually sinks, and the dead leaves which have been blown to and fro settle in corners and sheltered places. As the sun sets all is still, and there is a sense of freshness in the air. Then the logs of wood thrown on the fire burn bright and clear—the surface of a burning log breaks up into small irregular squares; and the old folk shake their heads and say, ‘It will freeze.’ As the evening advances the hoofs of horses passing by on the road give out a sharp sound—a sign that the mud is rapidly hardening. The grass crunches under foot, and in the morning the elms are white with rime; icicles hang from the thatch, and the ponds are frozen.

But there is nothing so uncertain as frost: it may thaw, and even rain, within a few hours; and, on the other hand, even after raining in the afternoon, it may clear up about midnight, and next morning the ice will be a quarter of an inch thick. Sometimes it will begin in so faint-hearted a fashion that the ground in the centre of the fields is still soft, and will ‘poach’ under the hoofs of cattle, while by the hedge it is hard. But by slow degrees the cold increases, and ice begins to form. Again, it will freeze for a week and yet you will find very little ice, because all the while there has been a rough wind, and the waves on the lake cannot freeze while in motion. So that a long frost is extremely difficult to foresee.

But it comes at last. Two really sharp frosts will cause ice thick enough to bear a lad at the edge of the lake; three will bear a man a few yards out; four, and it is safe to cross: in a week the ice is between three and four inches thick, and would carry a waggon. The character of ice varies: if some sleet has been falling—or snow, which facilitates freezing—it is thick in colour; if the wind was still it is dark, sleek, perfectly transparent. It varies, however, in different places, in some having a faint yellowish hue. There are always several places where the ice does not freeze till the last—breathing-holes in which the ducks swim; and where a brook enters it is never quite safe.

The snipes come now to the brook and water-meadows. Following the course of the stream, fieldfares and redwings rise in numbers from every hawthorn bush, where they have been feeding on the peggles. Blackbirds start out from under the bushes, where there is perhaps a little moist earth still. The foam where there is a slight fall is frozen, and the current runs under a roof of ice; the white bubbles travel along beneath it. The moorhens cannot get at the water; neither can the herons or kingfishers. The latter suffer greatly, and a fortnight of such severe weather is fatal to them.

I recollect walking by a brook like this, and seeing the blue plumage of a kingfisher perched on a bush. I swung my gun round ready to shoot as soon as he should fly, but the bird sat still and took no notice of my approach. Astonished at this—for the kingfisher sat in such a position as easily to see anyone coming; and these birds generally start immediately they perceive a person—I walked swiftly up opposite the bush. The bird remained on the bough. I put out the barrel of my gun and touched his ruddy breast with the muzzle: he fell on the ice below. He had been frozen on his perch during the night, and probably died more from starvation than from cold, since it was impossible for him to get at any fish.

More than once afterwards the same winter I found kingfishers dead on the ice under bushes, lying on their backs with their contracted claws uppermost, having fallen dead from roost. Possibly the one found on the branch may have been partly supported by some small twig.

That winter snow afterwards fell and became a few inches thick, drifting in places to several feet. Then it was the turn of the other birds and animals to feel the pain of starvation. In the meadows the tracks of rabbits crossed and recrossed till the idea of following their course had to be abandoned. At first sight it seemed as if the snow had suddenly revealed the presence of a legion of rabbits where previously no one had suspected the existence of more than a dozen. But in fact a couple of rabbits only will so run to and fro on the snow as to cover a meadow with the imprints of their feet—looking everywhere for a green blade.