WILD FOWL AT HOME 267 



her young family, who pull her this way and that, 

 with their unresting activities and their whims, till 

 she seems almost distracted with the toil and moil of 

 their young life, while their father is lazily enjoying 

 his own perfections, and, once or twice in the course 

 of the day, will, perhaps, condescend to take a 

 short flight in her direction, and gratify her, in the 

 middle of her labours and anxieties, with a distant 

 sight of his splendid plumage. Almost every part 

 of the lake soon revealed a pair or two of wild fowl. 

 In one corner, far away, there is what my friend pro- 

 nounces, with his naked and much-practised eye, 

 to be a male shoveller duck ; and, as you turn the 

 glass in that direction, you descry the strange flaps 

 of his mandibles, the brilliant blue upon his wing, 

 and the chocolate upon his breast, and you even 

 see, or fancy that you see, the bright yellow rim 

 around his eye. 



And now our imaginations are sufficiently 

 whetted for our work. A messenger had been sent 

 on to the gamekeeper, whose house is visible, a 

 quarter of a mile beyond the upper end of the water, 

 and commands a view of the whole, to warn him 

 of our arrival; but we begin the work of the day 

 without him. We cross a bit of meadow land 

 damasked with cuckoo flowers, with cowslips, and 



