78 DAYS IN DOVE DALE 



" Like a duck at thunder " is a vulgar ex- 

 pression for astonishment, which I wished to 

 witness with my own eyes ; so I strolled round 

 to the farmyard, where there were a score or 

 so of waddlers, some sleeping contentedly on 

 the bank with their heads tucked under their 

 wings, others on the pool, some with their 

 heads in the water and their tails in the air, 

 and some swimming about and fighting and 

 snatching from each other a nasty piece of 

 offal. 



Suddenly came a tremendous crash right 

 overhead, " sic a roar " that it certainly startled 

 me for a moment, and it was a comical sight 

 to see how ail their heads simultaneously shot 

 out from under their wings, straight up, like 

 the sudden spring of jack-in-the-box how they 

 all turned up their eyes with " a hafflin glance 

 at the howling heavens," and then those on 

 land dashed into the water, and those on the 

 water scrambled in their awkward, wobbling 

 way to shore it was for me a novel and 

 amusing sight. 



There is, I believe, a theory abroad that fish 

 won't rise in a thunderstorm. We tested that 

 theory with a very remarkable result. 



