CHAPTEE X. 



Birds Contest between a Heron and an Eel. 



WITH the exception of a slight drizzle on Saturday the last ten days 

 have been wonderfully fine for the season [February 1870]. Seldom, 

 indeed, have we been so near realising the "ethereal mildness" 

 of Thomson's " Spring " so early in the year. And, in sooth, it 

 was high time that some such pleasant change in the weather 

 should take place, for no living wight can remember anything so 

 incessant and persistent as were the rain and the storm of the 

 previous six weeks. 



" When frost and snow come both together, 

 Then sit by the fire and save shoe leather," 



quoth Jonathan Swift, the honest Dean of St. Patrick's, being 

 evidently no curler, and more given to satire than to snow-balling ; 

 but really for the six weeks above specified nothing less than 

 the direst necessity could tempt one to any other pastime than the 

 prudential and prosaic one recommended in the couplet. Grant 

 him but license to grumble, however, and man can endure, and 

 that scathlessly, much more than he wots of. And how easily 

 is he after all restored to equanimity and even cheerfulness ! Here 

 we are already, placid and pleased, enjoying the fine weather ; the 

 cold and the wet and the boisterous gales of January and 

 December altogether forgotten, or, if remembered, remembered only 

 to give zest to the bright and sunshiny present. And never, we 

 believe, were song-birds in such free and full song on St. Valentine's 

 day. Morning and evening (the interval, you must know, dear 



