61 



MRS. COATES'S SATE. 



MRS. COATES'S BATH is, I am happy to say, a bath no 

 longer, but subserves a better purpose. What it was in 

 the old days, and what it is now, I proceed to explain. 

 One of the most delightful privileges of a practical 

 naturalist is to possess extensive grounds of varied cha- 

 racter. The next best thing is to live close to such 

 grounds possessed by a friend who allows free range 

 over them. In the same grounds that were mentioned 

 in the paper entitled ' Under the Bark ' is a small pond 

 situated at the bottom of a rather steep dell close to the 

 house. Somewhere about the beginning of the present 

 century a certain Mrs. Coates inhabited the house, and 

 very judiciously converted a piece of swampy ground 

 into a convenient bathing-place, by having a pond dug 

 and paved, and the spring which saturated the ground 

 led into it at one end, and out of it at the other, and so 

 conveyed into a brook which just skirts the grounds. 

 For many years, however, the place has been disused as 

 a bath, and merely serves as a pretty object to the eye. 

 A week or two ago the idea struck me that the pond 

 was likely to be rich in animal life, inasmuch as it is 

 completely sheltered from the north-east wind, which 



