CHAP, iv.] NESTING-PLACES. 295 



beware of the bridge ; like other inviting paths, it is 

 full of holes and pitfalls. We are forewarned, and so 

 forearmed, but you are a stranger to these dangerous 

 regions. Yet immediately under that insecure loose 

 plank, a Wagtail reared her brood last summer, although 

 a wheelbarrow was rumbling three or four times a day 

 over her head all the while. The bridge is broke and 

 must be mended ; we wish that everything else that is 

 amiss could as easily be set right. But the inventing 

 a pretty rustic design will be an agreeable amusement 

 for somebody in a snug room some dull winter's 

 evening." 



# * * * 



" And now, as it is a bright warm morning, while 

 they are making breakfast we will, if you are not afraid 

 of the dew, show you two or three of the nests of our 

 'Water Bantams.' In some localities, they build in 

 trees, in others on the ground, but with us always in 

 this manner. There, you see where the bulrushes have 

 been pulled down into a sort of basket-work, about 

 three feet from the bank: if you attempt to make a 

 long arm, and lay hold of it, you will assuredly over- 

 reach yourself, and fall in ; and if you venture to ob- 

 tain a footing to it, you will sink knee-deep, or higher, 

 in mud and water. It looks like an Egyptian home- 

 stead during an inundation of the Nile, or like one of 

 those Don Cossack terraqueous residences that were 

 visited by the brave Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke. That 

 nest contained eight eggs, all of which would have been 

 hatched, but that the young lady whom you see at our 

 elbow, in her anxiety to secure a pet for herself by 

 means of a landing-net, frightened off the dam and 

 seven chicks, and only obtained a half-hatched egg. 



