The Gull Pond 35 



cap till the following Spring, grow daily stronger ; and 

 one fine morning, after a little preliminary exercising, 

 a family will extend its ramble for a score of miles to 

 where a cool breeze is driving the white-fringed water 

 over sand and shoal ; one household follows another, 

 as each is relieved from pressing domestic duties, till 

 the last mother is found vainly trying to coax her 

 belated brood to forsake the unnatural company in 

 grass and thicket for that of the kittiwakes and divers 

 and the freedom of the coast ; and if you come that 

 way to joy in the voice of the sea, you will only hear 

 the landrail crying from the park, the pheasant's 

 screanr from the thicket, the loud quack of the mal- 

 lard, and the shriek of the bald-pate. Not till the 

 March winds bring back the violet will the lost music 

 sound again. 



THE STOCK-DOVE 



LET it be said in the stock-dove's praise, that not 

 by obtrusiveness, nor over-multiplication, nor the 

 villainy of pillage has he made himself a nuisance. 

 Whether he is or is not thriving outrageously is what 

 none knows, though appearances are in favour of his 

 prosperity. White of Selborne, in spite of diligent 

 inquiry, never seems to have found where he breeds, 

 nor did his correspondents either ; and as it is now 

 not difficult to discover his nests, the fact would seem 

 to indicate an increase of numbers. But as, unlike 



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