132 NATURE NEAR LONDON, 



canoes, solitary scullers in outriggers, once now and 

 then a swift eight, launches, a bargee in a tublike 

 dingy standing up and pushing his sculls instead of 

 pulling ; gentlemen, with their shoulders in a halter, 

 hauling like horses and towing fair freights against 

 the current ; and punts poled across to shady nooks. 

 The splashing of oars, the staccato sound as a blade 

 feathered too low meets the wavelets, merry voices 

 sometimes a song, and always a low undertone, which, 

 as the wind accelerates it, rises to a roar. It is the 

 last leap of the river to the sea; the last weir to 

 whose piles the tide rises. On the bank of the weir 

 where the tide must moisten their roots grow dense 

 masses of willowherb, almost as high as the shoulder, 

 with trumpet-shaped pink flowers. 



Let us go back again to the bank by the cornfields, 

 with the glorious open stretch of stream. In the 

 evening, the rosy or golden hues of the sunset will be 

 reflected on the surface from the clouds; then the 

 bats wheel to and fro, and once now and then a night- 

 hawk will throw himself through the air with un- 

 certain flight, his motions scarcely to be followed, as 

 darkness falls. Am I mistaken, or are kingfishers 

 less numerous than they were only a few seasons 

 since? Then I saw them, now I do not. Long 

 continued and severe frosts are very fatal to these 

 birds ; they die on the perch. 



And may I say a word for the Thames otter ? The 

 list of really wild animals now existing in the home 

 counties is so very, very short, that the extermination 

 of one of them seems a serious loss. Evcvy effort is 

 made to exterminate the otter. No sooner does one 



