Page:The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/217

 And first we must look to our tackle. It is extremely simple. A landing-net, lined with muslin; a wide-mouthed glass jar, say a foot high and six inches in diameter, but the size optional, with a bit of string tied under the lip, and forming a loop over the top, to serve as a handle which will let the jar swing without spilling the water; a camel-hair brush; a quinine bottle, or any wide-mouthed phial, for worms and tiny animals which you desire to keep separated from the dangers and confusions of the larger jar; and when to these a pocket lens is added, our equipment is complete.

As we emerge upon the common, and tread its springy heather, what a wild wind dashes the hair into our eyes, and the blood into our cheeks! and what a fine sweep of horizon lies before us! The lingering splendours and the beautiful decays of autumn vary the scene, and touch it with a certain pensive charm. The ferns mingle harmoniously their rich browns with the dark green of the furze, now robbed of its golden summer-glory, but still pleasant to the eye, and exquisite to memory. The gaunt windmill on the rising ground is stretching its stiff, starred arms into the silent air: a landmark for the wanderer, a landmark, too, for the wandering mind, since it serves to recall the dim early feelings and sweet broken associations of a childhood when we gazed at it with awe, and listened to the rushing of its mighty arms. Ah! well may the mind with the sweet insistance of sadness linger on those scenes of the irrecoverable past, and try, by lingering there, to feel that it is not wholly lost, wholly irrecoverable, vanished for ever from the Life which, as these decays of autumn and these changing trees too feelingly remind us, is gliding away, leaving our cherished ambitions still unfulfilled, and our deeper affections still but half expressed. The vanishing visions of elapsing life bring with them thoughts which lie too deep for tears; and this windmill recalls such visions by the subtle laws of association. Let us go towards it, and stand once more under its shadow. See the intelligent and tailless sheep-dog which bounds out at our approach, eager and minatory; now his quick eye at once recognizes that we are neither tramps, nor thieves, and he ceases barking to commence a lively interchange of sniffs and amenities with our Pug, who seems also glad of a passing interchange of commonplace remarks. While these dogs travel over each other's minds, let us sun ourselves upon this bench, and look down on the embrowned valley, with its gipsy encampment,—or abroad on the purple Surrey hills, or the varied-tinted trees of Combe Wood and Richmond Park. There are not many such prospects so near London. But, in spite of the sun, we must not linger here: the wind is much too analytical in its remarks; and, moreover, we came out to hunt.

Here is a pond with a mantling surface of green promise. Dip the jar into the water. Hold it now up to the light, and you will see an immense variety of tiny animals swimming about. Some are large enough to be recognized at once; others require a pocket-lens, unless familiarity has already enabled you to infer the forms you cannot distinctly see. Here (Fig. 7)