18 
MATEI^NAL CARES. 
where tlie swatlies lay long and regular like waves in a sea 
of verdure rolling eastward to meet the sun, and becoming 
each moment more and more golden-tinged with its beams ; 
when the buzz and murmur of insect voices, and the flit- 
ting of gaily-coloured wings, announced the' coming of 
summer, whose floral attendants scattered nectar and am- 
brosia in such profusion around her way, that the sense 
was oppressed with the fullness of delight, and the soul 
went floating away upon a sea of extacy — then it was that 
the little brood came forth, and went rolling about like 
balls of yellow down, after their clucking and exulting 
dam, who led them through 
Many -a lane, and many an alley green, 
Dingle, and bushy dell of the wild wood, 
And many a bosky bourn from side to side. 
There they go, little round rollicking things, chittering and 
twittering all day long, carefully fed and watched and 
attended by their assiduous mother, who covers them with 
her wings at night, and defends them as best she can against 
the damps and dews, and often less successfiilly against 
furred and feathered enemies, the weasel, the polecat, and 
the skulking fox, the night-hawk, and the ghost-like owl, 
which in lieu of a mouse supper will, if he has a chance, 
take a plump little pheasant or partridge, or any other 
small game of the kind. 
The watchful keeper marks the brood, secures the hen 
and chicks by night, and bears them for greater security to 
the home preserve, should the j)lace of their birth be an 
outlying spot, exposed to many dangers ; or it may be that 
he has noted the slight hollow, scratched by the hen bird, 
and lined with dead leaves, and removed the eggs and her 
to a place of security before the hatching of the poults. 
Should they, however, have escaped his notice, the chances 
are that few of them will live to attain maturity. When 
the summer v/as far advanced, and the emerald and sapphire 
dragon-flies were gleaming amid the velvet heads of the 
waving bulrushes ; when the corn was turning yellow 
upon the upland leas, and the fresh green hues of the 
woodlands were gradually changing into the russet tints of 
