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CHAPTEE IX. 



OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 



" Birds, the free tenants of the land, air, and ocean, 

 Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace." 



THE Tory Fox Hunter, of whom Addison has given such a 

 racy sketch in the " Freeholder," is a right sensible old gentle- 

 man in some respects after all ; and nowhere does he show to 

 greater advantage than there in the park, " at the side of Rosa- 

 mond's Pond, pulling a handful of oats out of his pocket, and with a 

 great deal of pleasure gathering the ducks about him." It gives 

 one an immense advantage over the crowd of mere lookers-on 

 at such a place to be able to deal out the contents of a well- 

 stored pocket, and with a little skill in the distribution of your 

 favours, you may easily get up a very pretty aquatic entertain- 

 ment in which feathered performers from all the " five " quarters 

 of the globe do their best to amuse the company. 



The water-fowl in St. James's Park are old friends of ours, 

 and have often beguiled us into idling away an hour under the 

 fine old elm-trees which adorn the banks of the lake. The place 

 itself is a very agreeable one, and seated there beside the water 

 on a summer afternoon, with the Club Houses, the Royal Palaces, 

 and the venerable old Abbey, all in view between the trees, 

 the roar of the great city mingles pleasantly with the rustling of 

 the leaves overhead, and gives one a comfortable sense of security 

 against all interruption from the noisy world outside the park 



It sometimes happens, indeed, that what with the comparative 

 quiet and seclusion of the place, the heat, and the glare from the 

 water together, we drop off into a sort of waking dream, and, all 

 unconscious of the human accompaniments round about us, 

 fancy ourselves far away on some distant shore or river bank, 

 attending to one or another of our vivacious friends upon the 

 water in their own proper homes. There is one thing, however, 



