FURRED AND FEATHERED YOUNGSTERS. 27 



Spat-spatter-spatter-spatter-splash ! The sounds 

 come from a large hole at the bottom of the wall, 

 where a stone, or we ought to say a slab, has 

 fallen out ; there it is, just above the water, as 

 large as a paving-stone. A nice lot of fish on the 

 feed these are, is my first thought ; for they dearly 

 like such places. Squash ! then a whining cry, 

 and out shoots a kitten-otter with a large dace 

 which his dam had given him, followed by a couple 

 more young ones that were trying their utmost 

 to rob him of it. They squealed, bit, scratched, 

 and carried on like little demons; first one had 

 the dace, then another. Sometimes they were on 

 the slab, then again they were in the water. The 

 thing they looked most like was a lady's brown 

 sable boa, twisted up and endowed with life ; they 

 writhed and twisted about like eels. How it would 

 have ended I cannot say, for the dam at that 

 moment put her head up with another fine dace, 

 and in my eagerness to see I pushed a stone off the 

 crumbling wall. 



A long wave passed under the arch, and I got up 

 to dry myself. 



The skylark, because it is so common, only re- 



