JANUARY 23 



not the slightest notice of him. She quite 

 ignores his devotion, though he follows her 

 about continually, and scarcely eats himself, 

 till she has had her fill. One peculiarity 

 is, that they are essentially dry ducks. 

 They have a holy horror of water the 

 pond in the field which one would suppose 

 might be such a comfort in hot weather, 

 they carefully avoid. When it rains, they 

 waddle inside the porch. And when the 

 walks and grass happen to be wet, they are 

 quite uncomfortable, and scramble up on 

 to any dry place they can find, to be out of 

 the damp. On the other hand, these ducks 

 will make believe to wash on the very 

 dryest gravel, and will clap their wings 

 and dip as if the gravel were deep waters ! 

 Some very secret inhabitants of the garden 

 are the hedgehogs; they are scarcely ever 

 seen but on one day in the year. On 

 warm June evenings, I begin to watch for 

 the old mother hedgehog, who never fails 

 to bring out her young family (almost in- 

 variably three) for their first survey of the 

 wide wide world of green turf, under the 

 elms, at the northern end of the garden. 



