300 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



for seldom are they seen. To find a young red-leg is as 

 difficult as to find a four-leaved clover. 



And when the marshes are alive with the voices of all the 

 watery tribe of birds, you may one sweet evening in May 

 " happen upon " one of the most beautiful and poetical 

 sights ever witnessed by man — their exodus to the water- 

 side. 



So soon as the egg-hoods shall have been cast off, even 

 if the young lie trembling in their nest a long mile from the 

 water, with intervening morasses, dark forests of chate 

 and reed, broad rivers, still waters — all these vast obstacles 

 quail not the hearts of these wild little spirits, and directly 

 the last-sprung shell is pulled off, the parents begin hovering 

 in the blue over their offspring, calling tea, tea, tea, and the 

 pretty little heads look up affectionately and trustfully, and 

 the great voyage across the dark continent begins, the 

 parents flying about a mill-length over them, and a yard 

 or so in front, calling anxiously tea, tea, and the brave little 

 souls plunge, with chirpings, into a soft morass, and half- 

 swimming, half-wading, they struggle through the nauseous 

 mud and marshy mephitic air, dodging round the big stumps 

 of the reeds — on, on, following the shrill tea, tea — on through 

 a dark jungle of reed, where lurks the huge stoat, whose 

 yellow head bursts like a tiger from the jungle and seizes a 

 poor agonised little creature, bearing him off into the gloomy 

 recesses of the reed-bed. Scattered by fright, the remaining 

 children run wildly hither and thither through the dark reed- 

 stalks, or crouch low whilst the agonised parents call with 

 heartrending cries from over the reed-bed forest. Running 

 and breathless, they arrive at last upon the open marsh, 

 having left the gloomy reed-forest behind them, and one 

 poor little brother. 



But the smiling marshland, gay with cotton-grass and 

 ragged-robin, entices them, and they make a safe and pleasant 

 passage across the grass, having crouched low once as a 

 gloomy harrier flew lazily overhead, his dark shadow filling 



