And what was there in the osiers to amuse a boy? First of all, there were the water-rats, always funny, but never so comical as when cutting reeds. You would see one go down under the water, and the reed would begin "twiddling" and quivering in response to the sharp brown teeth at work below, but instead of falling, the reed would lean up against the next one, and when the vole came up to look for it, it would not see it, but it used to say "Bless me, how odd!" and go under again, and begin cutting another one down, bothering the dragon-fly who was sitting on it very much by the vibration. Then it would come up again, catch hold of it, and swim away to the stump where its hole was, and drag it up and cut it into lengths like an imitation beaver making a dam, and stop every now and again and look round, though there was only myself and the dragon-fly to appeal to, as much as to say, "There! that's the way it's done." And if there were two of them, to see the way they stroked each other's cheeks with their tiny paws, just as the wallabies do, putting one hand on each side of the other's face, was as pretty as could be. Then there were the dabchicks, who came swimming along under water right over one's feet, looking like bags of bubbles, or as if they were all covered with globules of quicksilver, and stopping to eat something at the bottom, as if they were fish, not birds. Then they would come to the top for air, catch sight of me, and with a horrified little "Goodness gracious!" bob under water again and go off straight down the little canal, a streak of bubbles. "_The Coot bald, else clean black that whiteness it doth bear_ _Upon her forehead starred, the Water-hen doth wear_ _Upon her little tail, in one small feather set._" DRAYTON. "_There have I watched the downy Coot_ _Pacing with safe and steady foot,_ _The surface of the floating field,_ _And though the elastic floor might yield_ _In chinks, and let the water flow_ _In beads of crystal from below,_ _Yet was the tremulous region true_ _To that rough traveller passing through._" FABER. [Illustration: THE WATER HEN]