JANUARY 9 



to denounce bitterly as quixotic and tyrannical. No 

 doubt it appears in the same light to the rising genera- 

 tion ; but to the field naturalist it has afforded unusual 

 opportunities of observation. Mallard, teal, coots, 

 water-hens, water-herons, and snipe haunt it all the 

 year round; cormorants and seagulls fly in from the 

 sea; in autumn flights of widgeon, tufted duck, and 

 pochards arrive, and a few scaup and goldeneyes drop 

 in to tea, as it were; wild swans and goosanders are 

 among the rarer visitors, and four years ago a bittern 

 condescended to take up his quarters in the reed-bed 

 at the lower end. 



To my taste, a voluntary population like this has 

 infinitely greater charm than a collection of foreign 

 wildfowl, which must be pinioned to prevent them 

 obeying the migratory instinct and departing in spring. 

 A bird deprived of its glorious powers of flight is, 

 of all cripples, the most pitiable, and its plight the 

 most heartrending. 



Moving quietly along the woodland paths beside the 

 lake, with a spyglass, one gets many a peep into the vie 

 intime of some of the wariest of feathered creatures. 



It is difficult, by the by, to account for the different 

 degrees of shyness among wild birds, and some of these 

 degrees are very well marked among those frequenting 

 this lake. The aversion of the cormorant to the most 

 distant sight of man, and the care he takes to keep 

 at least two gunshots from the shore of a lake where 

 none of his kind have forfeited their lives for more 

 than fifty years, may be set down to a guilty conscience. 



