FOREST TITHES 
yellow, and rich dark brown, with the rush clumps 
scattered about over it,' was his reply. This was his 
foreground ; in the distance he had two cottages, and 
beyond were the fir woods. 
On his feet were huge wooden sabots, lashed 
tightly to his leather boots. These, he informed me, 
were made by himself sepulchral-looking articles 
they were. He had placed four coats of black paint 
on them, he said, both inside and out. Anyway, 
they answered his purpose admirably, for although 
the \vater had been flowing under his feet beneath 
the moss all the day, no damp had reached him ; and 
the result on his canvas was all that could be desired. 
To my request that he would favour me with a 
dance in those coffin-like damp-protectors before I 
left him, he replied that it would hardly be wise to 
dance about much, for only a few days previously a 
couple of cows had got bogged just below the very 
spot on which we were, and had the farmer's men not 
pulled them out with ropes, they must have been 
smothered. 
To return to my moorland fish-pond. The sight of 
five herons sailing in wide circles over any spot would 
be sufficient to attract the notice of any naturalist. 
The birds were shouting hoarsely to each other, after 
the fashion of rooks, but far more noisily, just out of 
