214 Marsh. 



mine to get back to our starting-place by a different route. 

 Yonder in the distance we can see Cooling Church, and here 

 and there, on the edge of the marshes, lonely copses may be 

 detected. Now and again we distxirb a heron, but he is not 

 ready for home yet, nor does he fly far before settling 

 down again. How strange it is that, gregarious as they are 

 in their nesting-places, the " lone hern " delights in solitude 

 when getting its food. Kingfishers, too, are pretty abundant, 

 if we may judge by the number of sparkling gleams of 

 blue that flash before our eyes every now and then. Here is 

 a ruin, a shepherd's hut probably. A rough tumble-down 

 place it is, and in far from a habitable condition; but it 

 would appear, from the sack of chaff on the floor, that some 

 one still uses it occasionally. The moss-grown roof is 

 broken through, the rough stones and bricks are grass- 

 covered. Here and there a sturdy plant of willow is pushing 

 its way through the gaping crevices. No one lives here 

 now, although it is occasionally useful. How? you ask. 

 Well, it is of no use trying to get off this marsh in a fog ; 

 the only thing to do then is to wait until the fog clears ; and 

 if you should ever be caught in such a condition as this, 

 even this ruin would be a palace. But a chaff bed. Ugh ! 

 Have you ever, dear reader, stayed at a small wayside inn 

 where chaff beds are used ? If so, you have certainly some 

 adventure to record anent Pulex irritans. You have never 

 heard of the gentleman? Think a minute of the name 

 irritans ! Does it not suggest at once that aberrant wing- 

 less Dipteron, the common flea, the female of which lays her 

 whitish eggs in dirty corners, cracks in the floor, or rarely- 

 beaten carpets, where they speedily become active, wrig- 

 gling, maggoty-looking caterpillars, which in a few weeks 



