184 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



dream of colour — a triumph of artistic flower-culture, 

 while in the Long Water in the Home Park are not a few 

 pairs of wild duck with their broods of downy youngsters. 

 You may see these merry little chaps dodging in and out 

 among the water-lilies and aquatic plants in search of 

 flies and other insect life. This piece of water is reputed 

 to hold some very fine pike and perch, and on a bright 

 sunny day numbers of enormous carp are to be seen 

 finning lazily in its weedy depths. Permission to fish in 

 this water may now be obtained. 



From the Long Water to Ditton Ferry is but a short 

 walk across the Home Park. Many of the fine old timber 

 trees, one notices, have been attacked by that parasite, 

 the mistletoe plant, of which great bunches hang from 

 the topmost branches of the trees. 



Here we may cross by ferry to the Surrey side, and at the 

 Swan Inn— mentioned by Theodore Hook — quaff a pint 

 of shandy gaff. Then a walk through the quaint old 

 churchyard of Thames Ditton, along Church Walk, across 

 Weston Green, and so on, to the golden gorse-decked 

 common of Esher — a veritable paradise to a lover of 

 nature. 



Snipe are not only to be shot on Esher Common during 

 the season, but their pear-shaped mottled eggs in a nest 

 composed of a few dead bents and feathers may be found 

 there. The head gamekeeper on the Ditton Estate, of 

 which Esher Common forms a part, declared that he had 

 watched and heard the nesting birds soaring and bleating 

 over the bog many a time. 



" Do you get any other game on the common? " he 

 was asked. 



" Oh yes ! There are always a few brace of pheasants 



