almost equals the size of one of our domestic fowls; for my part, I have never met with any of them. The smallest is the most frequently seen; I have often found it in fenny grounds filled with reeds, which communicate with rivers; it makes its way, with surprising case, among reeds and sedges, and other aquatic plants, owing to the compression of its body, and its elongated toes. A great many sportsmen confound it with the water-rail, which it resembles in its habits. The middle-sized water-hen, which is generally called the water-chick, attains to nearly the size of a pigeon, but it is taller, and more slender: some writers say that it is only to be found on large rivers, but I believe they are mistaken. I have met with the water-chick swimming and taking its pleasure in ponds, and drinking the green mantle of the standing pool; but it is true that it most commonly conceals itself among the rushes during the day, from whence it issues in the evening to seek its food. The water-hen has short wings, and is obliged to reside almost entirely near the spot where she seeks her food; she cannot make long journeys. Where the stream is selvaged with sedges, or the pond is edged with shrubby trees, she loves to make her haunt. She builds her nest of sticks and fibres, hiding it among the twigs, close down by the water: whether she makes pond-weed her food, or hunts among it for waterinsects, which are there in great abundance, is not known. This bird swims with great ease, and sits lightly on the water, holding its head erect; it dives with equal facility. When surprised in a narrow stream or ditch, it usually dives, concealing itself beneath the banks with nothing but its bill above water. Watch as long as you please, it is impossible to find it, as you cannot discern the tip of the bill above the surface. When on terra firma, it does not raise itself easily from the ground, and flutters its wings like the water-rail. Like this bird, too, the water-hen flies heavily, and hangs down its long claws; it is not by any means a difficult bird for the sportsman to bring down; but we must own the capture is not a rich one: however, it must be said in favour of the water-hen, that it may be eaten in Lent, being considered fasting food.

"The bird called the little water-rail, is a pretty bird about the size of a lark. Its plumage, of a deep bottle-green, is spotted with an infinite number of small white specks, in such a manner that one might say it was enamelled, and this has given it the name of the pearl-rail. Towards the end of autumn the pearl-rail becomes very fat, and is esteemed most delicate eating; it frequents the edges of ponds and marshes. When it is flushed it flies heavily, for it is of the family of the rails. It breeds in this country. Its nest is a little skiff, which it places on the water; it fastens it to the reeds with some blades of grass, which it has the address to twist together; the nest, thus retained by flexible bands, can rise or descend according as the water increases or diminishes. It deposits in this floating asylum seven or eight eggs of a reddish brown, marked with some patches of a brown still darker.

"Frequently, in the midst of a tuft of reeds, the sportsman may surprise the wild duck and the teal; he may likewise meet with the bittern, or starry-heron, as it is sometimes called. The bittern has the feet and neck not quite so long as the common heron; the beak is stronger at the base and sharper, which renders it more dangerous for dogs, against which it defends itself most courageously. It differs from

the heron chiefly in its colour, which is, in general, of a palish yellow, spotted and barred with black. The bittern lives on frogs and fish, which it catches during the night; when more nourishing food is wanting it feeds upon vegetables; thus it is always plump and fat. In the day time it hides itself, and sleeps among the high grass; it is a heavy-rising bird, and does not often escape the fowler. The Greeks, taking its character from its habitual indolence, have given it the title of The lazy.' The evening call of the bittern is so loud and solemn in its sound, that no one who has heard its booming once can forget it; it only repeats this call when it is undisturbed and in solitude; when it dreads the approach of an enemy it is perfectly silent. It was formerly held in much estimation at the tables of the great, and, like the heron, considered a delicate and fine-flavoured bird. It makes its nest in a sedgy margin, or among a tuft of rushes.

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We may also by chance meet among the reeds with the grey heron, although this bird prefers the running waters and the sandy shores. Perched on a single foot, it awaits-immoveable and patient, like the stork-until some fish comes within its reach. The heron was accounted in former days the noblest prize on which the falcon could pounce. It figured as the crowning dish upon the table of princes. It had a place in chivalry, and the vow made upon the dead body of a heron was never yet broken by a true knight. Almost all our chivalrous customs, however, have disappeared, and this is among the number of those which are no more. According as the surface of the country has been drained, and grounds formerly overflowed with water have been turned up by the spade, the waterfowl, and, above all, the herons, have nearly disappeared; the herons so much so, that these birds, without which in former days no banquet was considered as costly, are now very uncommon. I know numbers of sportsmen whose fowling-piece has never been levelled at one. I have often wished to know if this is a loss to the culinary art, and if the heron merited the praises which the ancients bestowed upon it. For my part, I found it to possess no flavour but that of a strong fishy taste, and pronounced it to be most detestable eating; and though a celebrated writer assures us that the bittern served up with onions is by no means a bad dish, I think we must renounce it and the heron as dainties which have no merit but that of ancient use.

"If, instead of following the edge of the pond, you enter more into the water, you will perhaps have the chance of finding-occupied in paddling among the rushes-some individual of the numerous wild duck tribe. The largest portion of them go to deposit their eggs in the marshes of the North towards the pole; but there always remain a few upon our lakes and ponds. They lay their eggs there; and the ducklings, which burst the shell towards the month of May, immediately follow their mother among the rushes. If, from the moment they break the shell, they are endowed with the faculty of swimming, they are not in the least able to sustain themselves in the air. Their feathers appear to grow slower than those of any other bird, and three months pass away before they have acquired the use of their wings; they have then attained to about half their full growth, and are called halbrans. This word comes from the German tongue, in which it is used to designate the young of the wild duck; but we employ it principally to point out the young wild ducks hatched on our ponds and lakes. Our tame ducks

do not differ much, as far as the plumage goes, from the wild ones. Everyone knows that the head of the female is gray, while that of the male is adorned with an emerald green. The wild duck has a more slender neck, and the membrane which unites the toes is finer and more delicate; the feet are of a polished black, and it is this above all which distinguishes it from the tame duck. It is excessively wild, and will never permit the approach of man; it is only by the force of stratagem that we can manage to reach it, and this is the reason why it is so necessary to study its habits. We are then obliged to employ a number of different means, according as this bird frequents the standing or the running waters. The young wild ducks, when we look for them in the months of August or September, are never far removed from the spot where they were hatched; it is therefore easy to come upon them by making the circuit of the pond. If the sportsman is so fortunate as to shoot the mother, a little artifice will make him master of the halbrans. He has only to let loose on the pond a tame duck, retained by the foot with a bit of pack-thread fastened to a stake. As soon as they hear it quack, the young wild ducks swim towards it, and the sportsman, concealed behind some tree, may shoot them at his leisure. It is only towards the end of October or the beginning of November that the flocks of wild duck arrive among us from the northern regions or the sea shores, to alight on our lakes and ponds. They make their appearance in small bands first, which in a little time become more numerous, and are recognised by their elevated flight in inclined planes or regular triangles. Their movements are made more by night than by day, and the whizzing of their flight discovers their passage. Their chief aim is to choose some lake in the neighbourhood of a marsh, where there is at the same time a cover of woods; in such a spot they will have a vast supply of insects; a wooded lake, therefore, in the neighbourhood of marshy ground, will be generally one of their favourite resorts. If in their flight, high above in the air, the voice of the mallard-whose cry is most peculiar is heard from the surface of some lake or pond, the band, who have left their northern retreats, will immediately descend; and where perhaps one solitary couple of wild ducks swam over its naked surface in the evening, hundreds of wild ducks will revel in it on the morrow. There is a great variety of these birds, all agreeing in the same general figure, habits, and mode of living, and only differing a little in their size and the colour of their plumage.

CHARLEY SCUPPER'S RACING YACHT.

CHAPTER VI.

It was a delightful evening in the month of July when the Tippoo lay at anchor in one of the finest harbours on the eastern coast of England the sun had gone down at exactly two minutes past eight, when, with the punctuality of naval discipline, the commodore of the yacht club had fired a gun from his schooner, denoting the time for

striking colours. The crew of the Tippoo were on the qui vive, and her ensign and burgee "fell as the leaves fall," with the dying echo of the cannon. Luminous traces of ruby-red hung in the horizon in all the glory of transcendent lustre ; not a ripple was seen upon the water, nor an air of wind to fan the glassy surface of the harbour, and nothing disturbed the stillness of the scene save the soft and gentle strains of music which were awakened by some youthful member of Terpsichore aboard a German vessel which lay at anchor about a cable's length from the yacht. This was the harbour in the neighbourhood of Littleborough, which we have had occasion before to allude to. Sir Reginald had been cruising all day, had dined aboard his yacht, and was smoking a cigar on deck; but ever and anon turning his eyes in the direction of the glorious picture in the western sky. Sir Reginald had never been in the tropics, therefore he knew nothing of the grandeur of a summer sunset in those regions; but nevertheless he was fully sensitive to the beauties of Nature, and thought to himself how cold indeed must the heart be, that could gaze on such a picture of the works of God, as that unfolded to his view, without some feeling of emotion.

All the crew except Joe Strand had gone below after striking colours, when Sir Reginald directed Joe's attention to the west, and spoke of the contrast between the works of man and the works of God; which Joe immediately understood as a signal or challenge for him to enter upon a philosophical discourse. Notwithstanding the ominous character of Joe Strand, Sir Reginald Runwall thought highly of him, both as a sailor and prognosticator, and used frequently to converse with him, and listen, for the half-hour together, to the peculiar dicta of that individual. But it is more than probable that Sir Reginald had sometimes a secret motive in conversing freely with Joe Strand-a motive which it would have been difficult for him to conceal, even from the unsuspecting scrutiny of the sailor. After enlarging upon the wonders of the sun, moon, and stars, the planets, their orbits, and such-like astrological discourse, Sir Reginald turned the tide of the conversation upon the yacht Sooloo, Charley Scupper, and, finally, Clara Littleborough.

"So the young lady was more ill than her brother, was she, Joe?" inquired Sir Reginald.

"I can't say that, sir," replied the man; "but she never came on deck once during the passage home, and I heard Mr. Scupper say several times that she was very poorly."

"And her brother had not the courage to go and administer to her wants once during the whole time?" said Sir Reginald.

"No, your honour; but I expect Mr. Scupper 'ministered everything she wanted."

"Very probably, Joe; but you did not assist at all, I suppose; nor see any of the 'ministering, did you?"

"Well sir," said the man, smiling, "I did see a something; but I never spoke of it to no soul living; because what I say is this-this is what I say if a gentleman like Mr. Scupper, or anybody else, choose to do a little courting aboard-ship, why, good luck to it, that's all I say; and it's no business of mine. But for all that, I should not have liked to have done anything in that line myself aboard the Sooloo, for she's the unluckiest craft I ever sailed in: I believe every plank and spar about her are unlucky. The trees she's built with have all of 'em been

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struck by lightning, or something of that; for 'tis nothing but bad luck that goes and comes with her, and I'm devilish glad to give her a wide berth."

"Well, Joe, but what was it you actually saw in the courting line,' as you call it, aboard the Sooloo?" inquired Sir Reginald.

"Oh, nothing of any harm whatever, sir. Mr. Scupper was a good deal down below, and I happened to just cast my eyes down by the halfopened skylight, when I saw him stoop and give the lady a buss as she reclined on the cabin couch: that's all! And I don't blame him; for she's one of the nicest young ladies I ever saw, and very pretty too, I reckon; don't you, your honour?" said the man, as if quite unconscious of the tender place he touched in the yachtsman's feelings. But it was indeed a home question; and though spoken with apparent simplicity, the love-sick knight could scarcely conceal his annoyance at the seaman's unintentional rudeness. He therefore made no reply, but added

"Did the young lady often accompany Mr. Scupper to sea?"

"Never after that day, your honour, whilst I was in Mr. Scupper's service, for the yacht was run down and disabled; but still she may have been many times since I left, and for aught I know to the contrary she was aboard this afternoon when the Sooloo went out of the harbour.' "This afternoon?" inquired the yachtsman, anxiously. "Did the Sooloo leave the harbour this afternoon ?"

"Yes, sir; we passed her, steering southward, just before we came into the harbour, about six o'clock this evening, whilst you were at dinner, sir."

"And why did you not tell me you had passed her?" inquired the yachtsman somewhat angrily.

"I am very sorry, sir; but I did not think it necessary to disturb

you."

"Disturb me, indeed; it would not have disturbed me much just to have opened the cabin-door and informed me of the circumstance. You will bear in mind for the future, that I wish you to report to me when I am below, any yachts we may pass; and you will make known my request to all the crew."

"Certainly, your honour, your order shall be obeyed," said the man, humbly.

"Was Mr. Scupper aboard?"

"Yes, sir, he was at the helm."

"At the helm, was he then I should think the young lady was not aboard. Was any other gentleman on deck?"

"No, sir; we saw no one on deck but Mr. Scupper and part of his crew."

"Sir Reginald now felt fully convinced that his rival had gone on a distant voyage, by his leaving the harbour at night; and it being very evident that Clara was not with him, he thought it an excellent opportunity to take advantage of Scupper's absence and endeavour to see her.

"You know the way to Littleborough from the beach, of course, Joe?" inquired Sir Reginald.

"Aye, aye, sir; the darkest night that ever was I'd find my way there," replied the man.