1 88 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



words (himself evidently no mean ornithologist) will exactly 

 describe the scene, as Homer, the " myriad-minded man," had 

 taught him : 



Jam varias pelagi volucres, et quse Asia circum 



Dulcibus in stagnis rimantur prata Caystri, 



Certatim largos humeris infundere rores ; 



Nunc caput objectare fretis, nunc currere in undas 



Et studio incassum videas gestire lavandi. (GEORG. I. 383.) 



Mr. Knox, in his delightful book on the Spey, describes a 

 water-piece from a Scotch loch which might well form a com- 

 panion picture. If the busy crowd of fen-loving birds is to be 

 adequately depicted in English poetry, the ornithologist must 

 go back to an authority who lived in the palmy times of the 

 fens, to Michael Drayton. The ducks and teal he dwells upon 

 with all the zest of an epicure : 



" The goosander with them my goodly fens do show, 

 His head an ebon black, the rest as white as snow. 

 With whom the widgeon goes, the golden-eye, the smeath, 

 And in old scattered pits, the flags and reeds beneath, 

 The coot, bald else clean black ; that whiteness it doth bear 

 Upon the forehead starred, the water-hen doth wear 

 Upon her little tail, in one small feather set. 

 The water-ousel next, all over black as jet, 

 With various colours, black, green, blue, red, russet, white, 

 Do yield the gazing eye as variable delight 

 As do those sundry fowls, whose several plumes they be." * 



The plough has long since made serious inroads into the 

 heart of the Fens. These birds and their congeners now ap- 

 pear by twos and threes in hard winters where their progenitors 

 mustered in flocks of thousands, 



' ' Their numbers being so great, the waters covering quite, 

 That rais'd, the spacious air is darkened with their flight." 



Most delightful of all rambles, however, to the bird lover, 

 from the varied beauties of running water, curving banks and 

 * Polyolbion, 25th song. 



