WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 23 



haunted by owls ; in the summer goat-suckers were 

 always to be seen in the evening flying about two 

 oaks on the hill. At one end of the lake in summer 

 the kingfisher might be watched fishing, and 

 throughout the year herons waded round its 

 shores picking up fresh-water mussels, or stood 

 motionless for hours, watching for fish. In win- 

 ter, when the lake was frozen, three or four hun- 

 dred wild duck, with teal and pochards, rested on 

 it all day, and flew away at night to feed ; while 

 widgeons fed by day on its shores. Coots and 

 water hens used to come close to the windows and 

 pick up food put out for them. The Squire built 

 a wall nine feet high all round his park, and he 

 used laughingly to say that he paid for it with 

 the cost of the wine which he did not drink after 

 dinner. 



A more delightful home for a naturalist could 

 not have been. No shot was ever fired within the 

 park wall, and every year more birds came. Wat- 

 erton used often to quote the lines : — 



"No bird that haunts my valley free 

 To slaughter I condemn; 

 Taught by the Power that pities me, 

 I learn to pity them ; ' ' 



and each new-comer added to his happiness. In 

 his latter days the household usually consisted of 

 the Squire, as he was always called, and of his two 

 sisters-in-law, for he had lost his wife soon after 

 his marriage in 1829. He breakfasted at eight, 

 dined in the middle of the day, and drank tea in 

 the evening. He went to bed early, and slept upon 

 the bare floor, with a block of wood for his pillow. 



