Various

“ Wherever it seems possible, drainage-works are attempted and carried out; and acres upon acres of valuable meadow-land have been and are in process of being reclaimed from the marsh. Some of these flat green meadows, which a century back were sodden quagmires covered with stagnant water, now pasture large herds of cattle, and are let at four pounds an acre for grazing purposes. At the outlet of the drains into the river, drainage windmills are erected of every size and shape, from the brick tower to the skeleton wooden erection painted a brilliant red or green. ”

“ The decoy-ducks are trained to come for food whenever they see the dog or hear a whistle from the decoy-man. The dog now showed himself obedient to a sign from his master, and in an instant every head among the teal was up, and every bright shy eye twinkling with pleased curiosity. Impelled by curiosity, they slowly swim towards the dog, which, slowly retiring, leads them towards the mouth of the decoy-pipe, showing himself at intervals till they were well within it. ”

“ Then he would be able to tell Madge all about it, and receive comfort from her.
He alighted at the gate, and walked swiftly up the avenue. The sun was out of sight; but it had left behind a soft red glow, which warmed and brightened the blackened landscape. Peering through the dark lacework formed by the bare branches of the trees, he saw a figure standing as it were in the centre of that red glow: the shadows which surrounded Philip making the figure on the higher ground beyond appear to be a long way off. A melancholy figure: light all round him, darkness within himself. ”

“ The original embryo—not that which clings to grass stalks, but the embryo three or four generations before, born of the adult fluke’s egg—is hatched after the egg drops from the sheep’s body, in marshy ground, ditches, or ponds. It then attaches itself to the snail, produces in the snail’s body two, and sometimes three generations of successors, all totally dissimilar from the original fluke. The last generation alone quits the snail, and, assuming the ‘cyst’ form, waits to be swallowed by the grazing animal, in order to become a full-grown fluke. ”

“ The paddle-like cilia, now useless, are thrown off; the eyes become indistinct; it subsides into a mere bag of germs, as it changes to a rounder form, and becomes in other words a sporocyst, or bladder of germs—for this animal, unlike its egg-laying parent, produces its young alive within itself. ”

“ A cercaria may thus be the young of the rediæ, either of the first or second generation; and the rediæ again sprang from the sporocyst, which is the after-formation of the fluke’s embryo. These cercariæ or tadpole-shaped animals are flat and oval in the body, about the ninetieth of an inch in length, and tail more than twice as long. They escape from the parent rediæ by a natural orifice, crawl out of the snail, and enter on a new life. Its existence as a cercaria in this style will much depend on the locality of the snail for the time being. ”

“ Into the soft portion of the snail’s body, the embryo accordingly begins to make its way. Pressing the boring horn or tool of its head against the yielding flesh of the snail, the embryo advances with a rotary motion like a screw-driver, aided by the constant movement of the cilia. The borer, as it pierces the snail, grows longer and longer, and finally operating as a wedge, a rent is eventually made sufficiently large to admit the unbidden guest bodily to the lodgings it will never quit. It settles at once in or near the lung of the snail, there to feed on the juices of the animal. ”

“ The great forests of reeds gleam like bundles of spears tipped with lambent flame, and the patches of feathery grasses and flowers are lit up with weird glimmers of rose-red and gold, glorious but evanescent. Light gray mists float up from the marshy hollows, mellowing the sunset glow with an indistinct quivering haze, which, mirage-like, cheats the wondering gazer with visions of ships and islands and wooded knolls, which he will search for in vain on the morrow. ”

“ Even from a dietetic point of view, it is for the public good that the disease should be extirpated, as it is well known that unwholesome dropsical meat, from the bodies of fluke-infested sheep, is frequently pushed on the market. Nor is this parasite exclusively confined to the lower animals. It has been communicated to human beings, doubtless from the consumption of infected meat producing cysts in the liver, &c.
But it is the initial results of Professor Thomas’s experiments, those which trace the progress of the fluke from the embryo to the adult stage, with which we have to do at present. ”

“ Beyond the broad belt of reeds that fringe the water are green meadows, dotted with red-and-white cattle, whose effect from an artistic point of view is very good, but from an angler’s standpoint is sometimes rather trying, as there is generally a bull, and as often as not he is a vicious and combative specimen of the bovine tribe. On this red-letter day, however, even the inevitable bull was quiet, and our author was left undisturbed to thread his way, on a soft warm afternoon, through the glowing beauties of an October landscape. In the marshes, all the seasons have their peculiar glory ”

“ The reigning Abbot, it need scarcely be said, was always a county magistrate, and at some period of his life certain to serve as sheriff. But for generations the family had occupied exactly the same position, and exercised exactly the same amount of influence in the land. The Abbots seemed neither to rise nor fall. If they added nothing to their estates, they alienated nothing. If they gave no great statesmen, warriors, or geniuses to the world, they produced, sparingly, highly respectable members of society, who lived upon the family acres and spent their revenues in a becoming manner. ”

“ I am convinced that in making this experiment I am dealing with a problem of great importance. It is a system by which capital and labour shall have an equal interest in working earnestly for the same end. I want to set about it on business principles. You are the only man of practical experience who has spoken a word of comfort on the subject.’
‘I am dealing with it from a selfish point of view—considering only how you can obtain most pleasure, comfort, happiness—call it what you may—for yourself out of your fortune. ”

“ These broads abound in fish, and afford capital sport to the angler. Bream and roach are abundant; and carp, although not so plentiful, are to be found, and grow to a large size. The rudd, or red-eye, a beautiful active fish, is very abundant; and few things are more enjoyable, when the weather is good and the fish rise easily, than a day’s rudd-fishing on the broads. The paying fish of these marsh meres are, however, the pike and eel; and a great number of fishermen live by eel-fishing. Eels are netted, speared, and caught in eel-pots ”

“ Taking the adult fluke—laying its eggs principally in the bile-ducts of the sheep, which it never leaves—as the original parent, its children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, inhabiting the snail, are all totally different in appearance from their original progenitor—most of the generations differing also from each other. It is only the fourth, though sometimes the third generation, which, changing its form to a migratory one, is enabled thereby to leave the snail, and ultimately to assume the cyst form, adapted to produce in time the veritable fluke once more. ”

“ Each{279} of the eggs contains one embryo, which when full grown is nearly the length of the egg—the spare egg-space up to that time being filled with the food-stuff to support it till hatched. As long as the egg continues in the body of the sheep, it remains inert. It is only when dropped—as they are from time to time in great numbers by the animal—and alighting upon wet ground, or on water in ditches or drains, that, under favourable conditions of heat, &c., the embryo at length comes forth. The time which elapses before the egg is hatched is extremely variable. ”

“ Swimming with a restless revolving motion through the water, the embryo begins to search for suitable quarters—in other words, to find a snail wherein to quarter itself. It is not easily satisfied, although snails, generally speaking, are plentiful enough. Indeed, it has been definitely ascertained that of all the known descriptions of snails there are only two which the embryo ever attacks. ”

“ From the carefully illuminated specimens of old, preserved in our public museums, down to the hastily scribbled printer’s ‘copy’ of to-day, each bears a history, and could contribute to unfold some portion of the life of the author whose hand had wrought it. ”

“ In 1781, there were many breaches of the sea between Waxham and Winterton, so that every tide the salt water and sands destroyed the marshes and the fish in the broads and river; and if the wind blew briskly from the north-west, by which the quantity of water in the North Sea was largely increased from the Atlantic, the salt water drowned all the low country even as far as Norwich.’ In the following eight years, the breaches were seriously widened, the largest being two hundred yards in width, through which a vast body of water poured.
In a country so open, wind-storms are very frequent ”

“ The only suitable snail is a very insignificant fresh-water one, Limnæus truncatulus, with a brown spiral shell. It is only from a quarter to a half inch in size, and seems to have no popular name. It is to be found very widely distributed through the world. Said to breed in mud of ditches and drains, it is so far amphibious as to wander far from water. It can also remain dry for a lengthened period; and even when apparently quite shrivelled up for lack of moisture, revives with a shower of rain.
The embryo knows this snail from all others ”

“ In this country there would be a universal shudder, if it were proposed to add the common garden-snail to the national commissariat, no matter how attractive might be the shape assumed by the Escargot de Bourgogne, or other snail of the orchard or vineyard; yet we eat countless quantities of whelks and periwinkles, which are not such clean-feeding animals as the snails of the garden. ”

“ What a funeral was that at which Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, and, in all probability, Shakspeare attended! what a grave in which the pen of Shakspeare may be mouldering away!’ Certainly, if but one line of that ‘mournful elegy’ written by the Immortal Bard could be recovered and offered for sale, we should then have a pleasing and memorable opportunity of marking the estimation in which the poet is held by mankind. ”

“ In Guernsey and Jersey, its flesh is highly esteemed, as being adaptable to the culinary art in an eminent degree. This fish ought to be much more plentifully exposed for sale than it is; and if our fishermen found a market for it, it would no doubt be so. It is a most prolific animal, yielding its eggs in literal millions. A specimen which weighed twenty-eight pounds possessed a roe of the weight of twenty-three ounces, which was computed to contain the almost incredible number of fifteen millions of eggs! ”

“ Every{280} cyst contains a young fluke, ready to be matured only when swallowed by some grazing animal, such as a sheep. Till that happens, the fluke within remains inert; and if not swallowed thus within a few weeks, the inmate of the cyst finally perishes. Of this remarkable family, however, a sufficient number outlive the changes and risks of their life-history to render the disease caused by the survivors a serious scourge.
It is to be hoped that the further results of careful inquiry into the habits of these parasites will have the effect of reducing the evil to a minimum. ”

“ Viewed through a microscope, the egg, which is only the two-hundredth of an inch in diameter, may be seen to contain the embryo, which is unlike its parent in every way, and will never show any trace of family likeness to it. ”

“ Few authors willingly destroy any manuscript that has cost them a long period of toil and research, though history records numerous examples where the loss of certain manuscripts has almost proved an irremediable misfortune to their author. ”

“ In all these broads and meres and the rivers which intersect them, bird-life abounds, and an almost incredible number of eggs are collected for the market, every egg which resembles a plover’s being collected and sold as such. Of the bird-dwellers in the marshes, herons are the most conspicuous ”

“ Frank Abbot bears one of the oldest names, and is heir to one of the best estates in the county. When he marries, he must marry a wife in his own position. What has Miss Keene to offer in exchange for what he can bestow?’
The girl’s pale face flushed; but her brave brown eyes met those of her interrogator without flinching. ‘If I thought you would understand me, Mrs Abbot, I should say that I have a woman’s true love to give him, and that is enough. ”

“ In the earlier weeks of the season, a gang of expert trappers will each earn over five pounds a week. The rabbits as they are caught are slung across poles in convenient places, and then lifted and conveyed in carts to ‘the works.’ There are several establishments of the kind in Victoria, and hopes are now being entertained by farmers of a speedy deliverance from the rabbit nuisance, as the large numbers which are being killed must in time tell on the breeding supplies. ”

“ The whole marsh district is subject to destructive floods and high tides, which rush up the rivers, driving back the fresh water and destroying vast quantities of fish. The whole coast also suffers much from sea-breaches. ”

“ Indeed, volumes might be written upon the difficulties sometimes encountered in climbing the literary ladder, and whilst the more persevering have ultimately achieved the goal of their ambition, others have been fated to see their writings consigned to oblivion, and have themselves perhaps sunk into an early grave, consequent upon the disappointments and privations endured. ”

“ Thus much good literature has often been lost to posterity. A number of instances, too, might be cited wherein persons have risen from their deathbed to destroy their manuscripts, and which task has either proved so distressing to their sensibilities, or fatiguing to their physical powers, that they immediately afterwards expired. ”

“ A modern instance of gratitude to a dog, though we have but few such, is, that the chief Order of Denmark—now called the Order of the Elephant—was instituted in memory of the fidelity of a dog named Wild-brat to one of their kings, who had been deserted by his subjects. ”