108 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
was copying tradesmen’s circulars, also some 
copying for two of the local clergy and for an 
attorney of the town. My work had come as a 
relief to them. The very first thing I had given 
them was a paper about the sheldrake. What a 
strange subject—they could hardly believe their 
eyes when they saw it. The sheldrake!—that bird 
about which they had so many memories, pleasant, 
and some not quite pleasant. It was all very 
wonderful. Before they came to Bath they lived 
with a bachelor brother who had come into a small 
farm, left him by a distant relation, on the Welsh 
coast. As he had nothing else in the world he 
went to live on it and work it himself, and kindly 
took them to keep house and do the indoor work. 
The farm was on a very wild, lonely spot, close to 
the sea, and abounded in birds of many kinds— 
sea and shore and land—they had never seen 
before. And though it was a rough place they 
loved it because of the sea and woods and hills 
and the birds, and they wished they had never had 
anything to do with the birds except just to see 
and admire them. But there was their brother, 
who was a great sportsman and who had some 
very strange ideas. One was that most birds were 
good to eat, and he was always shooting some 
queer-looking bird and bringing’ it in to them to 
dress and cook it for dinner. And the sheldrake 
was one he often shot. He said it was a sort of 
duck, and therefore just as good to eat as a mallard, | 
or widgeon, or teal, and that it was nothing but a 
