Pond Life 
the young ones would snoozle under her 
feathers and climb up on her back just 
like a hen and her chickens. This pond 
was particularly well situated, and there 
was plenty to see besides the dabchicks. 
A kingfisher constantly flew over the 
water and perched on some of the alders 
which surrounded it, and the splash 
made by its plunge after a fish could be 
distinctly heard even when the bird itself 
did not happen to be within sight. 
A large family of golden-crested wrens 
and another of wrens were flitting in 
every direction among the beeches, with 
shrill cries ; and a family of young jays 
and their parents made the whole wood 
—for the pond is in the middle of a 
wood—resound with their outcry and 
noise. Overhead I could see a kestrel 
soaring over the fields and meadows, 
I 
