Pond Life 
you may depend upon seeing them 
with more certainty, and if you take 
the trouble to hide and wait, you are 
certain of seeing a good many interesting 
sights. 
Last spring I spent a whole day at 
such a pond not many miles from London 
in a rough shelter I put together of 
what boughs and sticks there were to 
be found near at hand, sheltered by a 
spreading larch-tree. It was very cold, 
for it was February, and there had been 
a sharp frost the night before, and the 
edge of the water in front of a big bed 
of bulrushes which faced my _hiding- 
place had a fringe of ice. I hadn't 
been there many minutes before a pair 
of wild ducks flew down and settled on 
the water just in front of me. But my 
shelter of sticks was rather open, and 
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