128 Up in the Morning Early. 



a morning walk like this, the fact of feres natures in 

 large numbers sustaining themselves in the close vicinity 

 of man, shyly busy at work, but seldom seen. Here, 

 close by a farmhouse, we skirt an unusually large pond 

 with clear inlet and outlet and with high banks around 

 it, particularly on one side. In it are perch, tench, and 

 roach, with a fair store of eels. There runs a moor-hen 

 with her brood along the sedgy edge, undisturbed at 

 our presence, for we often walk that way. She has 

 her home in that little island-looking space over yonder, 

 where the willow spreads a soft screen or shelter for 

 her nest. Wild ducks in colder seasons come this 

 way too, and so do the lapwings in hard weather, and 

 sometimes in summer or autumn a squirrel or two will 

 steal over from yonder wood just to look how the trees 

 are for nuts, and will scream down at you from the 

 higher branches when you stand and closely watch 

 them, as if you had no right to be there, and they were 

 privileged. Mr. Squirrel is very nice as a pet, but he 

 is a little exclusive and overbearing in his manners as 

 we find him here. Perhaps, however, something is due 

 to the narrowing of the area of woodland year by year ; 

 and he now sees too much of men and their ways for 

 his comfort and peace. 



Ha ! There goes a brown rat a very different kind 

 of customer, who, because he can take the water well, 

 and, perhaps, does a bit of fishing on his own account, 

 is often confounded with the vole, who suffers sadly 

 from the ignorant on this account, though really very 

 unlike him in almost every respect. Greed, self- 

 assertion, and low cunning are marked on the water- 

 rat. His quick furtive eyes are as characteristic as 

 the pink eyes of the weasel are of him. He is no 

 vegetarian if he can help it, and after fishing in the 



