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The ousels must have been the sacred birds of Tana, the Water Goddess, the ever attached votaries of her dripping and rustic shrines. By the winter shore, untrodden by any but the fisher going down at the ebb to seek king-crab for bait, or by his children, gathering driftwood on the stones, one little bird stays ever faithful to the same short range of shore.
At daybreak, you see the water ousels singing above the rapids, and you may catch the lilt of a mocking-bird, or see a bluebird examining some frost-touched berries. It is October; but the goldfinches, which have long since left us in the North, are in myriads here. The second day at the Bridge, we drove up the Arroyo Hondo to see the Penitentes.
Fly and her brother shared a collection of birds' eggs, and were so excited about robbing the ousels of a single egg, that Gillian hoped that Fergus would not catch the infection and abandon minerals for eggs, which would be ever so much worse -only a degree better than butterflies, towards which Wilfred showed a certain proclivity.
He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke: 'She's dead! he said; 'I've not waited for you to learn that.
The grayling fisherman on the Northern streams has the water ousels for his constant and charming companions, true to the mountain river as in the days of Merlin and Vivien, busy as big black-and-white bees as they flit up-stream and down-stream, flying boldly into the waterfalls, dropping silently from mossy stones into the clear brown eddies, singing when the sunbeams shine and warm the crag-tops, and even floating and singing on the water, like aquatic robins.
He called, and the creatures obeyed the call, Took their legs and their wings and followed him all; Squirrels that carried their tails like a sack, Each on his own little humpy brown back; Householder snails, and slugs all tails, And butterflies, flutterbies, ships all sails; And weasels, and ousels, and mice, and larks, And owls, and rere-mice, and harkydarks,
There are many more birds below the Cañon rim than above it; and the dawn was filled with snatches of song from bluebirds and yellow finches and water ousels, whose notes were like the tinkle of pure water.
Archery was another favourite amusement, and he was expert at making bows from the thinnings of the Dunglass yews, and arrows tipped with iron ousels almost the only manual dexterity he possessed. Like all boys of his class, his usual dress was a brown velveteen jacket and waistcoat and corduroy trousers that had once been white. Along with the teaching he got from Mr.
Welsh barrapyclids. Pigs, with wine sauce. Chickens. Macaroons. Blackbirds, ousels, and Rabbits, and sucking Tarts, twenty sorts. rails. rabbits. Lemon cream, rasp- Moorhens. Quails, and young berry cream, &c. Bustards, and bustard quails. Comfits, one hundred poots. Pigeons, squabs, and colours. Fig-peckers. squeakers. Cream wafers. Young Guinea hens. Fieldfares. Cream cheese.
Then there are water shrews, the beaver, otter, duck-billed platypus, and a host of others, not related, just as, among birds, there are water ousels, moorhens, ducks, divers, etc., which have permanently made the water their home and seek their living in it. All these have attained to web-footedness in a greater or less degree. And it has a consequence not to be escaped.
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