846 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



woods instead of their lios2)itablc host, and that I 

 sat so near them as their guest, instead of as a 

 visitor at the kindly mansion. 



Close to me glide upon their happy way (or 

 chase each other on wing just above the water) 

 pairs of teal. A little further off the pochards 

 play, the red heads of the male birds coming out 

 warmly as against the darker shades, while the 

 brilliant shelldrake, the goosander, the widgeon, 

 the golden-eye, the baldcoot, the lesser grebe, 

 and the moor-hen, all join in this scene of luippy 

 life, or add to the chorus of wild cries, while 

 my presence, or what, in other places, would be the 

 dreaded presence of tyrannical mortality, creates 

 neither terror nor distrust. I seem to sit among the 

 Ijirds as a sort of invited guest, to love, to watch, 

 and still to learn, the wondrous and beautiful 

 secrets of Natural History. 



The flocks of swans around me — even their 

 pugnacity to other aquatic birds is, in this happy 

 scene, completely laid aside; they are all over 

 tlie lake, as if standing on their heads, while 

 bending beneatli the surface of the water to pick 

 tlie newly-springing tender weeds. Here and 

 there on the banks arc sitting, on their coarse. 



