NATURE NEAR LONDON 2E~ 



have said before, is too near. There comes the 

 quick short beat of a steam launch shooting down 

 the river hard by, and the dream is over. I rise 

 and go on again. 



Already one of the willows planted about the 

 pond is showing the yellow leaf, before midsummer. 

 It reminds me of the inevitable autumn. In 

 October these ponds, now apparently deserted, will 

 be full of moorhens. I have seen and heard but 

 one to-day, but as the autumn comes on they will 

 be here again, feeding about the island, or search- 

 ing on the sward by the shore. Then, too, among 

 the beeches that lead from hence towards the fanci- 

 ful pagoda the squirrels will be busy. There are 

 numbers of them, and their motions may be watched 

 with ease. I turn down by the river; in the ditch 

 at the foot of the ha-ha wall is plenty of duckweed, 

 the Lemna of the tank. 



A little distance away, and almost on the shore, 

 as it seems, of the Thames, is a really noble horse- 

 chestnut, whose boughs, untouched by cattle, come 

 sweeping down to the ground, and then, continuing, 

 seem to lie on and extend themselves along it, 

 yards beyond their contact. Underneath, it re- 

 minds one of sketches of encampments in Hindo- 

 stan beneath banyan trees, where white tent cloths 

 are stretched from branch to branch. Tent cloths 

 might be stretched here in similar manner, and 

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