and furious encounters, and invariably came off successful. But a legion of Polish geese at length arrived, who commenced hostilities with Jack. Despising every thing like even warfare, they attacked him in a body, and pecked him so severely, that he drooped for a few days and then died. The body of poor old Jack is to be stuffed for one of the scientific museums."

Those who live near the banks of the Thames well know the instinctive prescience with which swans will, before a flood, raise their nests so as to save their eggs from being chilled by the water; and we will conclude this chapter, already we fear too long, with an account of one of these wonderful preparations, clearly showing that to the incubating swan,

"Coming events cast their shadows before,”

for which Mr. Yarrell was indebted to the kindness of Lord Braybrooke.

The scene of this true tale was a small stream at Bishop's Stortford. A female swan had seen some eighteen summers, had reared many broods, and was become familiar to the neighbours, who valued her highly. Once, while she was sitting on four or five eggs, she was observed to be very busy, collecting weeds, grasses, and other materials to raise her nest. "A farming man was ordered to take down half a load of haulm, with which she most industriously raised her nest and eggs two feet and a half: that very night there came down a tremendous fall of rain, which flooded all the malt-shops, and did great damage. Man made no preparation, the bird did. Instinct prevailed over reason: her eggs were above, and only just above the water.??*

* British Birds. A very interesting account of similar foresight in the Beaver will be found in the New Sporting Magazine, for July, 1840. The Elbe, upon a particular occasion, had been higher than it had risen within the memory of man; bnt the event had been expected because the beavers had been observed to build such unusually high dams, a sure sign of spring floods in that river.

A WORD TO ANGLERS.

Good luck to your fishing."

THE MONASTERY.

IF, as "Thomas Best, Gent., late of his Majesty's Drawingroom in the Tower," saith, "Patience is highly necessary for every. one to be endowed with who angles for carps, on account of their sagacity and cunning,"—that virtue is still more essential as an endowment to the angler who goes after the great Thames trouts. He must be content to spend much time in dropping · down from stream to weir, from pool to stream, and from stream to weir again, and to burn all the skin off his face many times before he has even a run: moreover, unless he wears glovesand no one handles his tools with mittens so well as he does with, out-he will have to present a pair of hands at the dining-table only to be rivalled in their nut-brown hue by those of the gipsy or the gravel-digger. But when he does get a. nine or ten pounder into his well, the look-down upon the fish, after all the hair-breadth hazards of losing him when hooked, is worth the weariness of many blank days, and the production of those unpresentable hands to boot.

To be sure, it does sometimes happen, even to the best of sportsmen, that, after the struggle is apparently over, and the fish is close to the boat's side, something will give way, leaving the unhappy Piscator with a straight rod and suddenly slackened line, and also with a sensation as if he had been suddenly deprived of his back-bone..

But for a lover of nature, even when fortune smiles not, this kind of fishing has many charms :--the bright river, the con- 1 tinual change of scene, the rich beauty of the highly cultivated and picturesque country through which it flows, and the exhilarating freshness of the air as it comes laden with the perfume of the new-mown hay, or of the honeysuckle blossoms from

"the cottage of thatch,

Where never physician has lifted the latch,"

make mere existence a pleasure.

Then there is always something to be seen by one who has eyes and knows how to use them. There are the wild flowers that enamel the banks, the insects, the fish-it requires a practised eye to see them-the birds. Here, a king-fisher shoots by like a

meteor-there go the summer-snipes-the swift darts by close to the boat, like

"An arrow from a Tartar's bow"

That back-water is positively carpeted with the green leaves and snowy star-bloom of the water-lily-and the nightingale hard by, in shadiest covert hid, fairly sings down all the host of day-songsters, though the blackbird and thrush make melody loud and clear,

On one of these expeditions not long ago, we observed below Lock, just as a thunder-storm was coming on, a pair of swans with seven young ones. There was evidently something more than usual going on some sensation, as the French say, among them. The young were collected between the parents, and the whole party pushed up stream. At first we thought they were nearing our punt, as we were dropping down from trying the weir, in the hope of bread; but three of the young ones mounted on the back of the female swan, who elevated her wings to receive them, the brilliant whiteness of her plumage contrasting beautifully with the gray down of the little creatures, and there was a sacred appearance about the whole party. The cause was soon manifest.

A magnificent swan, worthy of Leda herself, came ploughing up the water, indignant at a trespass on his domain. The family hurried on; and in their haste, one of the young slipt off its mother's back. There was distress! A weakling was left behind in the wake of its father, and whilst it scrambled along, non passibus æquis, uttered shrill cries as the enemy advanced. Up came the mighty bird, and then the father, evidently inferior to the attacking swan in age, size, and strength, turned to meet him, while the little family, huddled close to the mother, made haste to escape up the river. Proud as the senior, the young father threw back his neck between his arched wings, and confronted the giant. This was unexpected; they kept sailing backward and forward abreast of each other, across the stream, like two warships; and the watchful turns of their graceful necks and bodies, as each tried to take the other at advantage, was a sight to see. We thought at last that they would do battle; for each of the rivals elevated himself on the water, and made show of combat to the outrance. But, by this time, the family, under the guidance of the affectionate mother, were safe, and the elder male swan seemed to think that the better part of valour is discretion, and that he had driven the intruders from his royalty. So they parted. The young one went up to receive his reward from the mother of his family, and the old one rubbed his neck on his wings, and dived, and dropped down stream again, evidently comforting himself that he had given the trespasser à lesson.

There was a dog belonging to the Lock-house. He, from experience, seemed to know that all swans are bullies; but still the encounter was something for a dog at a lock-house, where any thing is an incident. And, indeed, this was so much more earnest in show than the usual conflicts, that he moved down towards the

brink, though the rain was coming on. At first he sat upon his tail; but, as the affair gave hope of becoming serious, he couched, and when the birds lifted themselves, as in act to fight, dropped his head on his outstretched fore-legs, with all the ecstasy of an amateur. When, however, he found that it was no go, and that the menaces ended as usual-much in the same way as they have done of late among the unfeathered bipeds, according to the new code of chivalry, he shook himself, like a sensible dog, and went back to shelter..

On another occasion, after fishing many miles of water with nothing but a few perch and jack in the well as the results, we dropped down to Weir.

Wearied with my no-sport, I stretched my listless length on the dry boarding that flanked the main weir, and watched with halfshut eyes, through the tremulous aërial medium that often attends a warm summer's day, the osiers on my left. The thundering of the fall had, by degrees, something soothing in it, and I felt that I was sinking fast into a doze, when I beheld a tall figure, in rusty black, with a club-foot, swarthy sharp visage, and an eye that positively glowed, looking down upon me.

"Ah!" said he, "no sport! Well, I, too, am a sportsmanand a very keen sportsman; but I am getting old, and I cannot walk the weirs now."

How he could ever have walked the weirs with that foot of his seemed a mystery; but the love of sport will carry people over any thing. Finding I made no reply, the figure continued

"What would you give to have on your line that fish, whose glittering side you saw but now, as he leaped from the river, till his splash was heard above the noise of the waters? He that was afterwards chasing the bleak on the shallow till his huge shoulders and back-fin were fairly shown."

66

Any thing," replied I; for I had been watching this fish-a twelve or fourteen-pounder at least, strong on his feed, and making the small fish skip into the air before him"

"any thing!" "I do not want any thing very substantial," said he, meekly. I looked up..

"You said awhile you would give any thing?"

66 'I did."

"You will give it, then?"

"Certainly."

"Agreed.'

He produced a small but most brilliant fish-such a one as I had never seen, and I had seen many, a kind of miniature Opah or King-fish-and fixed it on the hooks of the trace most skilfully. "You don't repent?" said he.

"No; but I am to have that great, fish on my line?"

"Yes."

"And land him?”

"The fish shall be landed."

"I shall want to send him to town. Can you meet me at the church yonder with a basket?"

"I don't go much to churches," said he; "people would stare at me so; but if you mean there" (as I pointed with my rod towards the tower), "I will see you in the churchyard."

I examined my splendid bait to see that it was all right. Neither Wilder, Purdy, nor Goddard could have fixed it better. I tried it in the still water, and it spun admirably. When I raised my head to praise the baiter, he was gone,

I was anxious to try my bait; and beckoned to the fisherman, who was sitting on the other end of the long weir-beam by my companion, as the latter was fishing between the two last spurs, near the eddy in the corner. He came.

"Have you had a run?" said I.

"Yes," replied the fisherman; "but not from the big fish, though the one as come at us was a solaker-I put him at seven or eight pounds."

"Where was it?"

"There, in the corner; he came out of the foam, and took us in the wambling-but the hooks drew."

"Then the fish are on the feed?"

"Yes; the sun has draw'd the baits up close to the weir, and the fish are come up arter 'em. That great fish druv thé baits right out of the water but now, at the far side there, just by that - shrimple.'

I showed him my bait fish. "Where did you get that?" said he; and who put it on?"

66

"Did you not see the man in black who was talking to me?" "No: I sid no man in black. I sid a great dark-looking heron fly away just beyond them osiers, and I wondered how he come to let you be so nigh him; you must ha' bin werry quiet."

I began to climb to the top of the weir-beam. "Is it any use to try again, think ??? you

"It's a werry odd bait as ever I see," responded the fisherman; "but it's werry bright, and you may as well try the weir over with it."

I stood on the weir-beam.

Now, no one who has not walked the Thames' weirs can tell