208 



THE ANGLERS SOUVENIR. 



V 



for many years of my life, was one summer 

 suddenly infested with an astonishing number of 

 the short-tailed water-rats, none of which had 

 previously existed there. Its vegetation was the 

 common production of such places, excepting that 

 the larger portion of it was densely covered with 

 its usual crop, the small horsetail (equisetum limn- 

 sum). This constituted the food of the creatures, 

 and the noise made by their champing it we could 

 distinctly hear in the evening at many yards' 

 distance. They were shot by dozens daily, but 

 the survivors seemed quite regardless of the noise, 

 the smoke, the deaths around them. Before the 

 winter this great herd disappeared, and so entirely 

 evacuated the place that a few years after I could 

 not obtain a single specimen." 



When capes and bays of rivers are shady in the 

 gloaming, how often have we seen the heron slowly 

 winging its way down-stream, turning its head and 

 long neck this way and that, looking for a likely 

 spot to settle, its large, grey shape dimly reflected 

 in the misty water. A bird of weird and ghost- 

 like aspect is the heron, but one which is a favourite 

 with the angler ; for whether he comes suddenly 

 upon it by some lonely tarn-side, standing knee- 

 deep in the shallows, with its neck drawn back, 

 and head resting on its breast, or watches its slow 

 and laboured flight as it awkwardly takes wing 

 from the river-bank as he suddenly approaches, it 

 is an interesting and beautiful object. It awakens 



