creatures to whom walking is difficult. Drooping | curious projection on the higher part of the orange willows, with long, narrow leaves, screen the spot from the garish world; and here and there clumps of the beautiful pampas-grass and giant cow-parsnip vary the vegetation. In its dim recesses is a jungle of grasses, rushes, and twiggy shrubs; and here, at midday and at night, the ducks find a safe retreat, until returning children, with biscuits and cakes, lure them again to the mainland shore. But what are these so-called ducks, these numerous and widely-differing water-fowl, most of which are quite strange to us? Some have very gorgeous colours, some have a crest on their heads, and some utter most uncouth cries. How came they here? for most of them are unknown to us off the park waters, although we might perchance find some stuffed and mounted specimens in the British Museum. Whose are they? and have they a keeper? Do they live here all the year, or are they simply summer sojourners? Such are some of the questions which suggest themselves to a visitor to St. James's Park, looking over to Duck Island at a little squadron which has just set sail from beneath the pendulous willows, and is leaving an arrow-shaped track behind. Let us first see what the "ducks" really are, and then learn where they come from. Surely there must be an interesting history of so varied an outdoor menagerie as this. The water-fowl of St. James's Park, which are a more varied collection than those found in the ornamental waters of our public parks generally, are an assemblage of swans, geese, and true ducks, from regions ranging from the Arctic to the intertropical zones and the southern hemisphere. If we follow these birds to their native homes, we shall find that they bring into St. James's Park all the romantic interest of wild regions known to most of us only through books of travel and adventure. Many of them range from Northern Asia, Iceland, and Labrador, to the Bahama Islands, North Africa, and the China and Indian Seas. Birds from Kamschatka and Australia are before us, some transporting us in imagination to the great marshes of the northern hemisphere, the fur countries, and the isles of the Arctic Sea: others take us to the vast muddy flats of African rivers and lakes, where storks and pelicans abound. Here, too, are our more familiar British wild-fowl, from the Hebrides southwards to the flats and broads of our coasts and inland waters. The marine ducks and the fresh-water ducks are alike before us on these St. James's Park waters, to rejoice our eyes and awaken our minds to scenes of Nature which most of us will perhaps never look upon. Sailing placidly across from Duck Island to a group of children with biscuits comes the black swan, the rara avis of antiquity. The black swan has become acclimatised in England, and annually rears her brood of cygnets. Watch the bird, and you will agree that if it is smaller than our native white swan, it is not a whit less graceful. Our white swan is a bird of high latitudes and found in the Polar seas. We can hardly have watched either the black or white species in the parks without noticing the remarkable power they have of submerging the head beneath the water for a considerable time in search of food at the bottom. The Chinese goose is another strange bird in the parks, which at once arrests attention. It has a coloured beak, which looks at first sight like a mal formation. Everybody asks the name of this bird with the curious beak-profile, but as the water-fowl are not labelled, like the trees and shrubs around us, the answer is not so easily got. But for this oddlooking beak the Chinese goose might almost be mistaken for its British relative, as it has perfectly white plumage. A couple of Egyptian geese are also here on the grassy banks, bringing other scenes before our mind's eye, such as Sir Samuel Baker has recently familiarised us with in his pictures of the country of the hippopotamus. They are large birds, with oval-shaped bodies and handsome mottled brown plumage, the upper part of a rich reddish brown, and the cheeks reddish white. They are great favourites with the visitors. Another far-travelling species now comes upon the scene. This is the white-fronted goose, abundant in Lapland and the Arctic Sea. Here we look upon the companion of the Esquimaux, the white Polar bear, and the blue Arctic fox. Let us note well so interesting a guest that we may know him again. The white forehead, surrounded by a dusky band, the pink bill and orange legs, the upper plumage mostly ash-brown, and the under plumage in front brownish white with patches and bars of black, are some of this bird's general characteristics. domestic goose is said to be derived from this whitefronted species. Our Still they come, labouring up the crumb-strewn slope, these interesting members of our feathered migrants. Within a few yards of us we see the very beautiful Bernicle goose, common in the western islands of Scotland and the White Sea. The Brent goose (a decidedly marine bird), which retires to the Arctic regions at the breeding season, and is at other seasons the most abundant of all the geese which frequent our shores; and the Bean goose, with orange bill and legs, next to the Brent the commonest of all our wild geese, and far more numerous in Scotland than in England. On these same waters, too, we shall find a pair of brown Chinese geese. All these geese, the Arctic and the British alike, with the excoption of the Brent, breed on Duck Island, St. James's Park. What vast and various tracts of sea and land these migratory species look down upon as they speed along from high to lower latitudes, cleaving the air in wedge-like array, at the rate of fifty and sixty miles an hour; what lakes, rivers, cities, and hamlets; what wilds and cultivated lands; at one season rejoicing the inhabitants of the frigid zones with the signs of returning summer; at another revisiting the temperate climes of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America! What journeys by night, too, as well as by day, apparently without any beacon to guide them! The geese, we observe-and the fact may be noticed on any village common as well as in the parks is-spend most of their time out of the water. Unlike the ducks, they are terrestrial rather than aquatic birds. Their food is chiefly grass. They walk more readily on land than the ducks, having the legs placed more centrally under the body. The park ducks are no less interesting as strangers and migrants than the park geese. They are not all strangers to us; some of them are mixed breeds of the common species. But most of them are pure breeds-British migrants and imported "foreigners." There is an extraordinary variety of these rarer water-fowl in St. James's Park, and their plumage is delightful to look upon. First there are the British migrant ducks. Let us give these the preference before noticing the exotic species. The Pintail Duck.—This, which is in form the most elegant of all the ducks-carrying its head and neck like the swan-visits nearly all parts of the northern hemisphere. It visits British shores in severe winters. It is common in Lapland. The Gadwall, or Grey Duck.-This rare species breeds in the great northern marshes of both hemispheres. It is met with in Siberia, India, Persia, North Africa, and through the United States to South Carolina. The Sheldrake, or Burrow Duck.-The largest and handsomest of the British ducks, but, being a marine bird, difficult to domesticate on inland waters. It often makes its nest in rabbit burrows, or in a hole made by itself. The St. James's Park specimens breed on the Duck Island. The ruddy sheldrake has its head and neck clothed with buff plumage, passing into orangebrown. The general plumage is of a rusty yellow. It is better known in Asia and the east of Europe than on the western sea-board. It has lived for some years in St. James's Park, but does not breed there. The sheldrake is placed first in the list of the ducks, because, in many respects, it resembles the geese, especially in the fact that the plumage of the females is almost of the same colour as the males, which is not the case with true ducks. The Golden-eye Duck.-This pretty, active little duck is a great favourite with visitors to St. James's Park. The male is conspicuous, the tuft of feathers on the head adding greatly to its beauty. It is one of the divers, and its motions are most rapid and interesting. It builds in holes of trees in high latitudes. The Laplanders place boxes, with holes in them, in the trees of the country for the birds to build in, and they thus procure their eggs, the cotes being regularly resorted to for laying in. The Ferruginous, or Castaneous Duck. This duck, with dark-brown back and a white bar across the wing, has a wide eastern range, and is a rare winter visitant to the British islands. The observant will notice that it swims with great expertness, dives well, and remains for a long time below the surface. It breeds in St. James's Park. The Red-crested Whistling Duck.-This very handsome bird is easily singled out from the bevy on the park waters. It has a wide range, being found in various parts of Asia, Italy, and Africa. It is an occasional visitor to Britain in winter. The Tufted Duck.-Another conspicuous species, with dependent crest (more noticeable in the male than the female) of very narrow black feathers and bill of deep bluish lead-colour. It is another of the northern species, and a regular winter visitor to our lakes and sea-coast. It is one of the prettiest of the diving ducks, and has made itself quite at home in St. James's Park, breeding on Duck Island. The Shoveller Duck. This bird is rarely seen at sea, and may be regarded as a fresh-water species. It is met with in the eastern and other parts of England, but is nowhere abundant. It has been observed on the shores of the Mediterranean and in some of the warm parts of India. In Holland it is abundant. It breeds in St. James's Park. The Widgeon, or Whew Duck.-Flocks of widgeon come to our shores in autumn, and the species are among the best known of the ducks that frequent our shores. The widgeon is widely distributed in the high latitudes of Europe and Asia, and goes northward in the spring to breed, returning in autumn. Its note is a whistling or whewing cry. The Teal. This is the smallest among the British ducks. It is a decidedly British species, with a wide northern range. It has two notes, one a kind of quack; the other, uttered only by the male during winter, has been compared to the whistle of the plover. The teal breeds on Duck Island, St. James's Park. The Pochard, or Dun Bird.-Another bird of wide geographical range, and a well-known winter visitant in the south of Europe. It is a skilful diver, as visitors to the park waters may soon observe for themselves. It rarely breeds in this country, but the St. James's Park colony rear their broods every year. Such are some of the wide-ranging feathered migrants of the northern hemisphere-from Eastern Asia to Iceland, the Polar Sea, and Labrador on the one hand, to the Mediterranean on the other-which may be seen inhabiting Duck Island, St. James's Park. So instructive a lesson in ornithology as this may well entertain us, and lead us to further observation when we again go to "feed the ducks." But let us now turn from the European to the exotic water-fowl. Mandarin ducks from China, the Bahama duck from South Africa, the Summer, or Carolina duck, from the United States, the Buenos Ayres duck, are exotic species which may be seen at St. James's Park. A more magnificently-clothed species than the grand Mandarin, or Chinese teal, especially when the male is in full plumage, is not to be conceived. These birds have the habit of perching, and may be seen at times on the branches of the willows overhanging the lake. The male is gorgeous in purple, green, white, and chestnut; the female is soberly apparelled in brown and grey. Between May and August the male throws off his fine crest, wing-fans, and brilliant colours, and assumes a dress as sober as his mate's. The Mandarin seldom breeds in this country, but we believe several broods have been reared in the Zoological Gardens. The Bahama duck has extremely beautiful plumage, and is a great favourite among the exotic water-fowl, but it has not yet domesticated itself on Duck Island to the extent of founding a family there. The Summer, or Carolina duck, a pleasing little creature, takes more readily to strange quarters, and rears a family every year at St. James's Park. There are between thirty and forty varieties of water-fowl to be seen on the St. James's Park lake. Let us now see how they came there, whose they are, why they stay there, and who looks after them. This interesting feathered community was founded by the Ornithological Society in the year 1836. The nucleus of the present collection of ducks was gradually established, consisting of captured, imported, and bred specimens. A hard life awaited the new occupants of the park waters, which are now so uniformly appreciated and protected by the visitors. The stranger species, with conspicuous crests, were most unmercifully harried by the rougher frequenters of the park, and they were actually destroyed in large numbers, being perseveringly pelted with stones by men, women, and children alike. It was some time before the poor birds got favour in the eyes of this class of visitors. Now, however, the infliction of wilful injury is of the rarest occurrence. It is now some years since the St. James's Park collection was handed over from the Ornithological Society to the custody of the park authorities-the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The Ornithological Society no longer exists, and the Zoological Society confines itself to importing and breeding rare birds simply for its own collections. Duck Island, St. James's Park, is, however, still in the charge of the keeper who was installed there in the earliest years of the Ornithological Society's efforts to stock the lake. He occupies the little Swiss cottage which was built for him in 1841, when the society began its work of acclimatising the water-fowl in real earnest, constructing steam-hatching apparatus, and feeding-places and decoys on the island. The duties of the keeper are these. He must seo that ample space and nesting materials are provided on Duck Island for the separate family life of birds of distinct habits, and in many cases of decided antipathies to each other. The swans, for instance, require a large space; they are very quarrelsome, and unless there is plenty of covert for the smaller water-fowl, it is impossible to keep and breed them on the same spot. To domesticate strange and valuable species being the main object, the keeper is careful that the vegetation shall afford sedges, grasses, and twigs for nests. Having made due provision for the breeding season, the keeper's cares begin. In some seasons thousands of eggs are found in the nests of Duck Island. Invading fowl from other waters-sometimes wild moorhen-will suddenly settle down in the island, disturb the sitting birds, and trample on eggs which were the keeper's most special care. Thus the hopes of a whole year are perhaps blighted, and the black swans or Egyptian geese might be cut off in the winter without leaving any lineage behind them. sary stock are received into hospitable quarters. Indeed, during the breeding season, only a small. proportion of the eggs have been hatched in excess of present needs. These are found useful in supplying the desiderata on other park waters. When chill October comes the net is spread on the island, and the new broods are driven in. Those which are to be preserved are pinioned afresh. Inasmuch as almost all the birds are of species belonging to high latitudes, the climate of our winter is in itself more congenial to them than our summers; but the limits of their range are probably more severely felt, especially when the water becomes frozen. An additional temptation to flight occurs through the occasional visits of wild birds of the same species, flocks of which will sometimes settle down for a few days in the St. James's Park and Serpentine waters. It can easily be imagined how these wild visitors awaken in the park ducks all the latent instincts of their lineage. But the keeper is careful to keep the ice broken in the parts most frequented by his birds-a most necessary precaution-as well as to feed them with grain (mostly Indian corn) when the island and the waters no longer yield the accustomed supply. So is the colony preserved until spring returns once more. Such is duck life on Duck Island, St. James's Park. By these means the water-fowl are kept as an ornament to our parks and a delight to the visitors. We have seen now what the so-called ducks are, whence they come, to whom they belong, and the nature of their sojourn with us. How instructive are the lessons in geographical ornithology we may get by going to feed the ducks! How happy, too, the change from the times when our feathered guests were sport for stone-throwing roughs to the times when they are cherished and protected by the visitors! Pleasant is the picture on a summer's evening when the lake is alive with graceful, sportive, and trustful water-fowl; pleasanter still to learn what we can of their native homes from Arctic seas to Australian shores. Perhaps, in our future visits to the parks, we shall observe more closely the friendly birds which bring, as it were, into our familiar holiday resorts the romantic scenes. of distant lands. H. W. The art of domesticating the fledgelings soon begins. Old and young alike are regularly fed with grain, and the strongest of all ties is thus formed with the keeper. In due time the new brood are caught and "pinioned," i.e., their wings are cut to prevent their flight from the park, an operation CONCERNING SHOES AND SHOEMAKERS. which has to be renewed regularly, in spite of the attractions of daily rations. In the summer season, when the birds live an entirely out-of-doors life, and are left very much to the mercy of the public, their number is carefully checked each day with the recorded list. The various friends the ducks have formed among the park police and the public speedily lead to the detection of any accident or loss by flight. The hybrids, or mixed breeds, take long flights all over the park, and occasionally are seen flying off to the Serpentine waters in Hyde Park; but these species are but of little value in the eyes of the keeper, and not worth the trouble of pinioning. Singularly enough, all the birds get very wary and suspicious towards dusk, when it is impossible to get near them. As winter approaches, and the limited resources of Duck Island have to be considered by the keeper, the surplus broods are thinned, and only the neces SUC II. UCH names as those we have mentioned belong to the order of sacred workers; but shoemakers have their representatives in other departments of letters. One of the chief of these is the mighty but merciless critic, William Gifford, one of the first, and certainly one of the most accomplished, editors of the "Quarterly Review," and the author of the "Baviad” and the "Mæviad." He was born in circumstances as lowly as any of his brother professors of the mysteries of cordwaining, but there came a time-nor was he very far advanced in life when it camewhen his voice and verdict were imperial in the world of criticism. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the age of fifteen; he had but one book in the world-a treatise on algebra; he determined to master its problems, but he had neither paper, pen, ink, slate, nor pencil. Mathematics, however, he was determined to conquer. He sat up night "Shut from the light, 'mid awful gloom, after night at his studies, and he used to beat out | Millbank, afterwards Lady Byron, seems to have small pieces of leather to a smooth surface, on greatly admired him. She erected a monument over which he contrived to work his problems. His his grave, with an inscription from one of his own master was not mathematical; he thought the pur- poems. suits of his apprentice were a waste of time and leather; he severely chastised him, and bade him "attend to his cobbling." It is not for this paper to describe how he attained to eminence. His satiric powers, always employed on the side of virtue and religion, even evoked an apostrophe from Lord Byron in his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." Why slumbers Gifford? once was asked in vain, Why slumbers Gifford? let me ask again; Are there no follies for his pen to purge? Are there no fools whose backs deserve his scourge? Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to greet? Stalks not gigantic vice in every street? Arouse thee, Gifford ! Be thy province claimed, Make bad men better, or, at least, ashamed." Gifford never married, but the tenderness and elegance of his nature are-shall we not say immortalised by his epitaph on one who was for more than twenty years his housekeeper and servant? We venture to think the verses show the real heart of the noble shoemaker even beyond any of his greater performances. We wonder if they are obliterated from the tombstone on which they were placed, in the burying-ground of Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street? "To the Memory of Ann Davis. "Though here unknown, dear Ann, thy ashes rest, And so we are among the poets. And in this connection the shoemakers boast more names than we can dream of doing justice to. There are the two Bloomfields, Nathaniel and Robert, especially Robert, who, although principally known by his delineations of rural scenery, and fields, and farm-house life, was a shoemaker. Few epigrams are more happy than that in which Henry Kirke White celebrates the fame of Robert. "Bloomfield, thy happy omened name Ensures continuance to thy fame; While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live!" But there are many names not unworthy of mention the children of the stall-who have not attained to the notoriety of their more eminent brethren. We have two volumes bearing the name of Joseph Blackett, born at Tunstall, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, where his father was a day labourer. At eleven years of age he was sent to London to be bound apprentice to his brother, who was a ladies' shoemaker. Joseph Blackett died young. Miss Let clay-cold honour rest in state; Let me, when bade with life to part, Nor bribe one sordid eye to weep." John Bennett was a shoemaker, and also parish clerk of Woodstock. We have seen some volumes of fugitive verses published by him in 1774. He was no poet, but perhaps had a happy facility for rhyming, and possibly enough of genius to secure for him the friendship of Thomas Warton, to whom his first volume was dedicated, and which, judging from the number of countesses and earls, and such persons of distinction-most likely obtained by Warton-among his subscribers, must have been of some profit to him. He was probably a deserving man, and his motives for publication appear to have been amiable, although his celebration of such subjects as "Bowley's Ale," and his "Lines to the Rose and Crown," do not belong to the fittest order of subjects; but then, as some extenuation, we may remember that Ben Jonson celebrated in verse the "Nights with Shakespeare at the Mermaid." However, it is probable that John Bennett would not have received any notice from us in this paper but for his celebration of shoemakers in In his first volume he vindicates his rhyme verse. thus:- Arn't shoemakers the same as other men? Th' ingenious statuary had display'd No wonder why the well-known censure past, Let not the cobbler go beyond his last.' But will much learning make dull blockheads wise? And give the world such patches of each other, As if th' inspiring Graces there resort.” And surely we must not forget, while we are recalling to our memory the names of those illustrious shoemakers who have done something significant in |