78 By Leafy Ways. 



command whose weather-beaten face seems in keep 

 ing with the battered timbers of his boat well pleased 

 with his morning's work, gets in his tackle. 



The long poles are stowed in the punts, paddles 

 are got out, and the old craft drift easily down the 

 swift current and disappear round the bend of the 

 river. 



Our way lies up the stream. It is six o'clock : a 

 glorious morning. Broad meadows glisten in the dew. 

 Long fields of grain are touched with the gold of 

 sunrise. 



Suddenly three wild ducks get up, with a prodigious 

 splash, as we pass their quiet creek. 



A swan, startled by the sound, spreads his broad 

 white pinions, and paddles along the surface with his 

 great black feet for fifty yards before he gets up way 

 enough to trust to his wings alone. 



A couple of dab-chicks farther on look round, and 

 then dive out of sight, coming up a dozen yards nearer 

 shore. Then showing their brown heads a moment 

 only they dive again, and are seen no more, coming 

 up, no doubt, in the safe shelter of the willow- 

 beds. 



A little company of goldfinches, which just now 

 were carelessly chattering to each other in their sweet 

 and breezy way, stop suddenly and begin to scold 

 violently. A blackbird rushes screaming out of a 

 thicket, where a wren takes up the cry and sounds an 

 alarm at the top of her little voice. A score of shrill 



