176 THE OPEN AIR. 



Kensington, ifc is stated that the visitors to the Museum 

 have fallen from an average of twenty-five hundred a 

 day to one thousand; the inference is, that out of 

 every twenty-five, fifteen came to see the natural 

 history cases. Indeed, it is difficult to find a person 

 who does not take an interest in some department of 

 natural history, and yet I scarcely ever meet any one 

 in the fields. You may meet many in the autumn 

 far away in places famous for scenery, but almost 

 none in the meadows at home. 



I stayed by a large pond to look at the shadows of 

 the trees on the green surface of duckweed. The 

 soft green of the smooth weed received the shadows 

 as if specially prepared to show them to advantage. 

 The more the tree was divided the more interlaced 

 its branches and less laden with foliage, the more it 

 "came out" on the green surface; each slender twig 

 was reproduced, and sometimes even the leaves. 

 From an oak, and from a lime, leaves had fallen, 

 and remained on the green weed; the flags by the 

 shore were turning brown ; a tint of yellow was creep- 

 ing up the rushes, and the great trunk of a fir shone 

 reddish brown in the sunlight. There was colour 

 even about the still pool, where the weeds grew so 

 thickly that the moorhens could scarcely swim through 

 them. 



