CHAPTEE I. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



ON the Somersetshire side of the Avon, and not far from Clifton, is a little comhe, at the 

 bottom of which lies an old fish-pond. 



Its slopes are covered with plantations of beech and fir, so as to shelter the pond on 

 three sides, and yet leave it open to the soft south-western breezes, and to the afternoon 

 sun. At the head of the combe wells up a clear spring, which sends a thread of water, 

 trickling through a bed of osiers, into the upper end of the pond. A stout stone wall has 

 been drawn across the combe from side to side, so as to dam up the stream ; and there is 

 a gap in one corner, through which the overflow finds its way, in a miniature cascade, 

 down into the lower plantation. 



The pond's smooth surface is prettily diapered with the green leaves of many a 

 water-plant, and with the sharp images of three famous beeches growing close to its 

 edge : but to a naturalist's eye the old wall is the more charming object. Time has 

 crumbled away the mortar near the water's edge, and made a thousand nooks and 

 crannies ; which, densely clothed with algre, are the haunts of myriads of living creatures. 



If we approach the pond by the gamekeeper's path from the cottage above, we shall 

 pass through the plantation, and come unseen right on to the corner of the wall ; so 

 that one quiet step will enable us to see at a glance its whole surface, without disturbing 

 any living thing that may be there. 



Far off at the upper end a water hen is leading her little brood among the willows ; 

 on the fallen trunk of an old beech, lying half-way across the pond, a vole is sitting 

 erect, rubbing his right ear ; and the splash of a beech husk just at our feet tells of a 

 squirrel, who is dining somewhere in the leafy crown above us. 



But see ! the water rat has spied us out, and is making straight for his hole in the 

 bank, while the ripple above him is the only thing that tells of his silent flight. The 

 water hen has long ago got under cover, and the squirrel drops no more husks. It is a 

 true ' Silent Pool,' and without a sign of life. 



But if, retaining sense and sight, we could shrink into living atoms and plunge 

 under the water, of what a world of wonders should we then form part ! We should 

 find this fairy kingdom peopled with the strangest creatures : creatures that swim with 

 their hair, that have ruby eyes blazing deep in their necks, with telescopic limbs that 

 now are withdrawn wholly within their bodies and now stretched out to many times their 

 own length. Here are some riding at anchor, moored by delicate threads spun out from 

 their toes ; and there are others flashing by in glass armour, bristling with sharp spikes 

 or ornamented with bosses and flowing curves ; while, fastened to a green stem, is an 

 animal convolvulus that by some invisible power draws a never-ceasing stream of victims 

 into its gaping cup, and tears them to death with hooked jaws deep down within its 

 body. 



Close by it, on the same stem, is something that looks like a filmy heart's-ease. A 

 curious wheelwork runs round its four outspread petals ; and a chain of minute things, 

 living and dead, is winding in and out of their curves into a gulf at the back of the 



B 2 



