' NATURE NEAR LONDON ' 155 



Curiosity seems in places to outstrip his sense of 

 beauty ; he ceases to be an artist, and is perhaps not yet 

 a scientist. There is much curiosity in ' A Brook ' and 

 ' A London Trout.' But the trout which his fond eyes 

 at length disentangled from the forms of water and weed 

 in the Hogsmill brook, and his watching, justify the 

 curiosity. He watched it for weeks, months, for four 

 seasons, and took great precautions that no one should 

 find out what he watched ; ' if anyone was following me, 

 or appeared likely to peer over the parapet, I carelessly 

 struck the top of the wall with my stick in such a manner 

 that it should project, an action sufficient to send the 

 fish under the arch '; and the river was colder, darker, and 

 less pleasant when it had gone. He has begun to think 

 about animals not merely as objects of study, or as 

 curious objects stuck prettily about the v/orld. He 

 complains of ' staring eyes, heads continually turned from 

 side to side, starting at everything, sometimes bare places 

 on the shoulders,' when droves of cattle go by. In ' Trees 

 about Town ' he describes a platform, inaccessible to cats, 

 for the feeding of birds in winter. He detests the bird- 

 catchers who haunt suburban lanes. ' Pity it is,' he adds, 

 ' that anyone can be found to purchase the product of 

 their brutality.' Some time later, in ' The Open Air,' 

 he expresses the opinion that all wild-life should be 

 encouraged and protected on the Thames, ' morally the 

 property of the greatest city in the world.' And j^et it 

 is twaddle, he thinks, to fine a boy for taking a bird's 

 egg. It is hard, indeed, to say on what principle he 

 thinks protection wise. It is more likely that, instead 

 of a principle, he has three prejudices — love of individual 

 freedom, love of untouched Nature, and hatred of ' pre- 

 servation by beadle '; and they are very strong, for though 

 he is a trout-fisher, he says in one place that he would 

 be glad to see back again the creatures which preserva- 

 tion has destroyed. 



