BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
5 
themselves in the water, or sunning themselves on 
the green bank. She did not cast her bread on 
the water in the manner usual with visitors, but 
was anxious to feed all the different species, or 
as many as she could attract to her, and appeared 
satisfied when any one individual of a particular 
kind got a fragment of her bread. Meanwhile 
she talked eagerly to the little ones, calling their 
attention to the different birds. Drawing near 
I also became an interested listener; and then, 
in answer to my questions, she began telling me 
what all these strange fowls were. "This," she 
said, glad to give information, "is the Canadian 
goose, and there is the Egyptian goose ; and here 
is the king duck coming towards us ; and do you 
see that large beautiful bird standing by itself, 
that will not come to be fed ? — that is the golden 
duck. But that is not its real name ; I don't 
know them all, and so I name them for myself. 
I call that one the golden duck because in the sun 
its feathers sometimes shine like gold." It was 
a rare pleasure to listen to her, and, seeing what 
sort of a girl she was, and how much in love with 
her subject, I in my turn told her a great deal 
about the birds before us, also of other birds she 
had never seen nor heard of, and after she had 
listened eagerly for some minutes, and had then 
been silent a little while, she all at once pressed 
