INTRODUCTION. 5 



keen bright eye he now looks up to God, and now down to 

 the bush where his mate sits with wings extended over 

 their unfeathered nestlings; with songs he cheers her ma- 

 ternal cares, and is then away on busy wing to cater for 

 mother and her young. Next I turn my steps to the open 

 moor; and soon as the intruder appears on her lonely 

 domain, the Lapwing comes down upon the wind ; brave and 

 venturesome she sweeps us with her wing, and shrieks out 

 her distress as she wheels round and round our head; her 

 brood are cowering on that naked waste ; nor does she rest 

 until our foot is off the ground, and even then, when the 

 coast is clear, we hear her long wild screams, like the beat- 

 ing of a mother's heart when her child is saved ; like the 

 mournful dash of waves upon the shore long after the wind is 

 down. . . . Such are God's creatures. The workisunmarred; 

 the workmanship what it came from the Maker's hand. . . . 

 Stretched on a flowery bank, with the hum of bees, the 

 song of birds, and the chirp of the merry grasshopper in 

 our ear, heaven serene above us, and beneath us the placid 

 lake, where every flower and bush and birch-tree of the 

 rock looks down into the mirror of its own beauty, the 

 murmur of the waterfall sounds to us like an echo from the 

 crags, of the Creator's voice, ' All is very good.' 3i 



