VIII. THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPILS.

WELL, Robert, where have you been walking, this afternoon? said a tutor13 to one of his pupils, at the close of a holiday.

Robert. I have been to Broom-heath, and so round by the windmill, upon Camp-mount, and home, through the meadows by the river-side. D

Tutor. Well, that is a pleasant round.

Robert. I thought it very dull, sir; I scarcely met with a single person. I would much rather have gone along the turnpike road.

Tutor. Why, if seeing men and horses is your object, you would, indeed, be better entertained on the high road. But did you see William ?

Robert. We set out together, but he lagged behind in the lane, so I walked on and left him.

Tutor. That was a pity.

you.

He would have been company for

Robert. O he is so tedious, always stopping to look at this thing and that; I would rather walk alone. I dare say he has not got home yet.

Tutor. Here he comes. Well, William, where have you been?

William. O, the pleasantest walk! I went all over Broomheath, and so up to the mill at the top of the mount, and then down among the green meadows by the side of the river.

Tutor. Why, that is just the round Robert has been taking; and he complains of its dulness, and prefers the high road.

William. I wonder at that. I am sure I hardly took a step that did not delight me, and I have brought home my handkerchief full of curiosities.

Tutor. Suppose, then, you give us an account of what amused you so much. I fancy it will be as new to Robert as to me.

William. I will do it readily. The lane leading to the heath, you know, is close and sandy; so I did not mind it much, but made the best of my way; however, I spied a curious thing enough in the hedge. It was an old crab-tree, out of which

grew a great branch of something green, quite different from the tree itself. Here is a branch of it. Tutor. Ah! this is mistletoe; a plant of great fame for the use made of it by the Druids E of old, in their religious rites and incantations. It bears a slimy white berry, of which birdlime is made, whence its Latin name of viscus. It is one of those plants which do not grow in the ground, by a root of their own, but fix themselves upon other plants; whence they have been humorously styled "parasitical," as being hangers-on or dependents. It was the mistletoe of the oak that the Druids particularly honored.

William. A little further on I saw a green wood-pecker fly to a tree, and run up the trunk like a cat.

Tutor. That was to seek for insects in the bark, on which they live. They bore holes with their strong bills for that purpose, and do much damage to the trees by it.

William. When I got upon the open heath, how charming it was! The air seemed so fresh, and the prospect on every side so free and unbounded! Then it was all covered with gay flowers, many of which I had never observed before. There was a flock of lapwings upon a marshy part of the heath, that amused me much. As I came near them, some of them kept flying round and round, just over my head, and crying "pewit," so distinctly one might almost fancy they spoke. I thought I should have caught one of them, for he flew as if one of his wings was broken, and often tumbled close to the ground; but as I came near he always contrived to get away.

Tutor. Ha, ha! you were finely taken in, then! This was all an artifice of the bird's to entice you away from its nest; for they build upon the bare ground, and their nest would easily be observed did they not draw off the attention of intruders by their loud cries and counterfeited lameness.

William. I wish I had known that, for he led me a long chase, often over shoes in water. However, it was the cause of my falling in with an old man and a boy, who were cutting and piling up turf for fuel; and I had a good deal of talk with

them about the manner of preparing the turf. and the price it sells at.

I then took my course up to the windmill, on the mount. I climbed up the steps of the mill, in order to get a better view of the country around. What an extensive prospect! I counted fifteen church-steeples and I saw several gentlemen's houses peeping out from the midst of green woods and plantations; and I could trace the windings of the river all along the low grounds, till it was lost behind a ridge of hills.

From the hill I went straight down to the meadows below, and walked on the side of a little brook till it entered the river, and then I took the path that runs along the bank. On the opposite side I observed several little birds running along the shore, and making a piping noise. They were brown and white, and about as big as a snipe.

Tutor. I suppose they were sand-pipers, one of the numerous family of birds that get their living by wading among the shallows, and picking up worms and insects.

William. There were a great many swallows, too, sporting on the surface of the water, that entertained me with their motions. Sometimes they dashed into the stream; sometimes they pursued one another so quickly that the eye could scarcely follow them. In one place, where a high, steep sand-bank rose directly above the river, I observed many of them go in and out of holes with which the bank was bored full.

Tutor. Those were sand-martins, the smallest of our four species of swallows. They are of a mouse-color above, and white beneath. They make their nests and bring up their young in these holes, which run a great depth, and by their situation are secure from all plunderers.

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William. A little further, I saw a man in a boat, who was cătching eels in an odd way. He had a long pole, with broad iron prongs at the end, just like Neptune's trident, only there were five instead of three. This he pushed straight down among the mud in the deepest part of the river, and fetched up eels sticking between the prongs.

Tutor. I have seen this method. It is called spearing of eels.

William. While I was looking at him, a heron came flying ever my head with his large flagging wings. He alighted at the next turn of the river, and I crept softly behind the bank to watch his motions. He had waded into the water as far as his long legs would carry him, and was standing with his neck drawn in, looking intently on the stream. Presently he dashed his long bill as quick as lightning into the water, and drew out a fish, which he swallowed. I saw him catch another in the same manner. He then took alarm at some noise I made, and flew away slowly to a wood at some distance, where he settled.

Tutor. Probably his nest was there; for herons build upon the loftiest trees they can find, and sometimes in society together, like rooks. Formerly, when these birds were valued for the amusement of hawking, many gentlemen had their heronries; and a few are still remaining.

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William. I then turned homeward across the meadows, where I stopped a while to look at a large flock of starlings, which kept flying about at no great distance. I could not tell at first what to make of them; for they rose altogether from the ground as thick as a swarm of bees, and formed themselves into a kind of black cloud, hovering over the field; after taking a short round, they settled again, and presently rose again in the same manner. I dare say there were hundreds of them.

Tutor. Perhaps so, for in the fenny countries their flocks are so numerous as to break down whole acres of reeds, by settling on them. This disposition of starlings to fly in close swarms was remarked even by Homer, who compares the foe flying from one of his heroes to a cloud of starlings retiring dismayed at the approach of the hawk.

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William. After I had left the meadows, I crossed the cornfields in the way to our house, and passed close by a deep marlpit. Looking into it, I saw in one of the sides a cluster of what I took to be shells; and upon going down, I picked up a clod of marl, which was quite full of them; but how sea-shells could get there, I cannot imagine.

Tutor. I do not wonder at your surprise, since many philosophers have been much perplexed to account for the same appear

ance. It is not uncommon to find great quantities of shells and relics of marine animals even in the bowels of high mountains very remote from the sea.

William. I got to the high field next to our house just as the sun was setting, and I stood looking at it till it was quite lost. What a glorious sight! The clouds were tinged with purple and crimson, and yellow, of all shades and hues, and the clear sky varied from blue to a fine green at the horizon. But how large the sun appears just as it sets! I think it seems twice as big as when it is overhead.

Tutor. It does so; and you may probably have observed the same apparent enlargement of the moon at its rising.

William. I have: but pray what is the reason of this?

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Tutor. It is an optical deception, depending upon principles which I cannot well explain to you till you know more of that branch of science. But what a number of new ideas this afternoon's walk has afforded you! I do not wonder that you found it amusing; it has been very instructing, too. Did You see nothing of all these sights, Robert?

Robert. I saw some of them, but I did not take particular notice of them.

Tutor. Why not?

Robert. I do not know. I did not care about them; and I made the best of my way home.

Tutor. That would have been right if you had been sent on a message; but as you only walked for amusement, it would have been wiser to have sought out as many sources of it as possible. But so it is, one man walks through the world with his eyes open, and another with them shut; and upon this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge the, one acquires above the other.

I have known a sailor who had been in all the quarters of the world, and could tell you nothing but the signs of the tipplinghouses he frequent'ed in different ports, and the price and quality of the liquor. On the other hand, a Franklin could not cross the English Channel without making some observations useful to mankind.