John Keble's Parishes

The children on their benches sat

Arranged in single file.

And there the clerk would stump along

And strike with echoing blow

Each idle guilty little head

That chattered loud or low.

Ah! I remember many things,

Old, middle-aged, and new;

Is the new better than the old,

More bright, more wise, more true?

The old must ever pass away,

The new must still come in;

When these new things are old to you

Be they unstained by sin.

So will their memory be sweet,

A treasury of bliss

To be borne with us in the days

When we their presence miss.

Trifles connected with the love

Of many a vanished friend

Will thrill the heart and wake the sense,

For memory has no end!

CHAPTER XVI-NATURAL HISTORY

Or animal life, though abundant, there is little or nothing special to record, besides the list of birds.

Polecats and martens only exist in the old rating book, but weasels and stoats remain, as well as a profusion of their prey-hares and rabbits. Squirrels haunt the trees, and otters are occasionally found in the river. Trout, grayling, now and then a pike, as well as the smaller fry of minnows and sticklebacks, are of course found in the streams. Eels used to be caught there on the moonlight nights by old labourers with a taste for sport, and the quaint little river cray-fish may be picked out of the banks of the 'water-carriages.'

Toads and frogs are a matter of course. Sometimes a procession of tiny, but perfectly formed 'Charley Frogs,' as the village boys call them, just emerged from their tadpole state, may be seen making their way up from their native pools.

The pretty crested newt, dark brown and orange, with a gold crest along its back like an iguana, is found in shallow ponds, also the smooth newt. These efts, or evvets, as the people call them, are regarded with horror by the peasantry. The children speak of having seen one as if it were a crocodile; and an abscess in the arm has been ascribed to having picked up an 'evvet in a bundle of grass.'

The slow-worm, in silvery coat, is too often slaughtered as a snake. Vipers come to light in the woods, also the harmless brown snake. One of these has been seen swimming across a pond, his head just out of the water, another climbing an oak tree, and one, upon the lawn, was induced to disgorge a frog, which gathered up its legs and hopped away as if nothing had happened.

Of rats and mice and such small deer there are only too many, though it is worth while to watch rats at play round a hay-rick on Sunday evenings, when they know they will not be persecuted, and sit up like little kangaroos. The vole, which is not a rat, is a goodly sight, and the smooth round dormouse (or sleep-mouse, as the children call it) is a favourite gift imprisoned in an old tea-pot.

The beautiful nest of a field-mouse has been found in a cypress's thick foliage, and dead shrews bestrew the paths; though the magic effects of having a 'sherry mouse' die in one's hand, and thus being enabled to stroke cattle and cure them, have never been experienced.

The anodon or fresh water mussel used to be found in Fisher's Pond on Colden Common, bordering on Otterbourne, and the green banks were strewn with shells left by the herons, but the pond is fast drying up and the herons have been driven away by guns.

The delicate paludina, of brown, horn-coloured, gracefully-formed shell, creeps on the water weeds, and hosts of snails may be studied.

Of insects less can be said here, but it is worth noting that one live purple emperor has been captured in Ampfield wood, two dead dilapidated ones picked up at Otterbourne.

The forest fly, so called, does not often come here; but it is observable that while strange horses are maddened by it, the native ones do not seem disturbed, knowing that it only creeps and does not bite. It is small and brown, not so formidable looking as the large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a hornet, which lays eggs under the skin of cows.

But with the blue, green, and orange dragonflies of summer, this list must conclude, and turn to the birds and botany of the place, mostly well known, and verified by Mr. Townsend's Flora of Hampshire.

BIRDS

THE KITE (Milvus ictinus).-Sometimes hovering over heathlands or farmyards, but not very common.

SPARROW-HAWK (Accipiter fringillarius).-Taken in a trap set for rats at Otterbourne House.

PEREGRINE FALCON (Falco peregrinus), Hursley, 1857.-As a pair for many years had a nest on Salisbury spire, this one may have flown thus far.

KESTREL (Falco tinnunculus)-Otterbourne, 1856.

SHORT-EARED OWL (Otus brachyotus).-Baddesley Common, 5th March 1861.

WHITE OWL (Strix flammea).-Nested in a barn, another year in a pigeon-loft, and again in an old tub at Otterbourne. To be seen skimming softly along on summer evenings.

BROWN OWL (Ulula stridula).-Glides over the fields like a huge moth, and on moonlight nights in August may be heard the curious hunting note. As the eggs are hatched, not all at once, but in succession, a family taken out of a loft and put into a sea-kale pot were of various ages, the eldest nearly fledged, standing up as if to guard the nest, the second hissing and snapping, as if a naughty boy, and two downy infants who died. One brown owl was kept tame, and lived 14 years. The village people call this bird Screech Owl, and after a sudden death always mention having heard it.

CHIMNEY SWALLOW (Hirundo rustica).-They chase the flies under the bridges on the Itchen, and display their red throats.

HOUSE-MARTIN (Hirundo urbica).-Twittering everywhere 'neath the straw-built shed.

SAND-MARTIN (Hirundo riparia).-Swarms sit in rows along the electric wires, and bore deeply into every sand-pit.

SWIFT (Cypselus murarius).-First to come and first to go. Their peculiar screech and floating flight are one of the charms of the summer evenings.

NIGHTJAR (Caprimulgus europæus).-All through the twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing in search of moths.

KINGFISHER (Alcedo ispida).-This beautiful creature darts out of the reeds bordering the Itchen, and it used to be at Chandler's Ford before the place was so populated. It seems also to haunt ponds or marshy places in woods, for a young full-fledged one was brought into Otterbourne House by a cat, alive and apparently unhurt. Another took a fancy to the gold-fish in a stone basin at Cranbury, and was shot, as the poor fish could not escape.

SPOTTED FLYCATCHER (Muscicapa grisola).-Late in summer these dainty little birds come whisking about the garden, perching on a rail, darting off after a fly, returning to the same post, or else feeding their young in nests on the side of the house. A pair built in 1897 in a flower-pot close to the window of