126 love's meinie. 



which they were first laid. Yarrell says only 

 that it is a large flat nest made of aquatic 

 plants; while Morris finally complicates the 

 whole business by telling us that the nest is 

 placed often as much as twenty or thirty yards 

 from the water, that it is composed of short 

 pieces of roots, reeds, rushes, and flags, and 

 that when dry the whole naturally becomes 

 very brittle.* 



105. While, out of my fifteen volumes of 

 ornithology, I can obtain only this very vague 

 account of the prettiest bird, next to the king- 

 fisher, that haunts our English rivers, I have 

 no doubt the most precise and accurate ac- 

 counts are obtainable of the shapes of her 

 bones and the sinuosities of her larynx ; but 

 about these I am low-minded enough not to 

 feel the slightest curiosity. I return to Mr. 

 Gould, therefore, to gather some pleasanter 

 particulars ; first, namely, that she has a 

 winter and summer dress, — in winter olive 

 grey and white, but in summer, (changing at 

 marriage time) deep olive black, with dark 



* I hear, from a friend in whose statements I have 

 absolute confidence, that he has found the eggs of the water- 

 hen laid on a dead sycamore leaf by the side of a shallow 

 stream, one of the many brooks near Uxbridge. 



