298 ON SURREY HILLS. 



creatures. Something fresh in their movements, 

 some peculiarity of habit in fur, feather, or fish 

 which has not been observed before, will present 

 itself to those who watch for it in a manner that 

 is startling at times. It makes the true naturalist 

 feel very humble in spirit, when, after long years 

 of patient observation, he sees the different creatures 

 show themselves in most unlooked-for situations, and 

 apparently new characters. 



I visited recently a lonely old farmhouse on the 

 border of the moorlands. Close to it is a small pond 

 surrounded by oak-trees ; the branches overhang it 

 so that the acorns drop in the water and bury them- 

 selves by the force of their own weight in the 

 decayed leaves at the bottom. Wild ducks are 

 remarkably fond of these acorns, and they have 

 visited this small pond in the late autumn and 

 winter seasons all the time the spot has been known 

 to me. I once told a man who had been a game- 

 preserver, and who chanced to be going that way as 

 I was, just as the day was closing between the lights, 

 the flight-time for all wild fowl, that if he got near 

 the pond very quietly he would get a chance at a 

 duck. 



