30 AT A HERONRY NEAR-LONDON 
at this, a very low elevation for them. The 
rooks made plenty of noise in the tree tops, 
but below them at the surface of the water, 
all..-seemed. »deathly. -stall. .o The:.spot saws 
inhabited, however, by a few moorhens and 
coots, and also by water rats. Some moor- 
hens’ nests were there, built, as is usual with 
them, in a piled up turret-like manner over 
water, and in one or two places we saw what 
was certainly, the keeper said, for he had 
seen the birds there, the commencement of 
a dab-chick’s nest, a floating collection of 
sticks. An old log, in the foreground, 
looking, as it lay there, like an Indian 
dug out canoe, had floated and floated for 
years, the keeper said, with the rise and 
fall of the water, and the varying winds, 
till it had at last found a resting-place 
in shallow water. The upper surface had 
decayed by the wet, and dust had accumu- 
lated, and leaves had rotted on it furnishing 
by degrees sufficient soil to maintain some 
raspberry canes which were flourishing well. 
Some of the rooks overhead could perhaps have 
