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POND AND STREAM

By

ARTHUR RANSOME

Author of "The Stone Lady"

NATURE BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

With illustrations by Frances Craine


LONDON

ANTHONY TREHERNE & COMPANY, LTD.

12, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C.

1906



FOR MOLLY



CONTENTS.

   I. About the Book
   II. The Duck Pond
   III, Stream and Ditch
   IV. Lake and River
   V. Our Own Aquarium



[Illustration]




I

ABOUT THE BOOK


This is a book about the things that are jolly and wet: streams,
and ponds, and ditches, and all the things that swim and wriggle
in them. I wonder if you like them as much as they are liked by
the Imp and the Elf? You know all about the Imp and the Elf, do
you not? Those two small jolly children, who live in a little
grey house in a green garden, and know the country and all the
things in it, almost as well as they know each other? The Imp and
the Elf love everything that is wet. They paddle in the streams,
and build dams, and make waterfalls, and harbours, and sail
boats, and do all the other things that every sensible person
wants to do. And they love all the fishy people who live in the
water, and the beasts that crawl in the mud, and the birds that
hop from stone to stone in the stream.

At home they keep a big glass tank on one of the bookcases in the
study. And that is the aquarium. It is a kind of indoor watery
home for the people whom they meet when they mess about in the
duck-pond, or the becks that trickle down the valley. You know
what a beck is? The Imp and the Elf are north country children,
and they would not understand you if you called the beck a
stream.

I will tell you about some of the guests who come to stay with
us, and live in the watery tank. But they must be talked about at
the end of the book. For just now I want to tell you about the
ponds and streams from which they come, and the things that have
happened to us there, and all the other things that you will want
to know, and the things the Imp and the Elf, who are sitting side
by side in my big chair, say must be told to you.




II

THE DUCK POND


The Duck Pond is far away at the other side of the village. We
walk a mile down over the fields, till we come to the village,
and then we go through a little cluster of grey houses, past the
tavern with the the picture of the prancing Blue Unicorn hanging
out over the door, past the little grey church with the red tiled
roof, past the farmyard by the smith's, where there is always a
large sized piebald pig grunting in the yard, and out again into
the fields. And then, on the left hand side of the road, we come
to three stacks, a horse trough, and a piece of commonland.

The common is rough and untidy, with clumps of gorse and thistles
and nettles. There is usually a spotty pony chewing the grass,
and a goat with naughty looking horns and a grey beard. A tiny
donkey with an enormous voice is tethered to a stake in the
ground. There is a crowd of geese, who throw out their long necks
in vicious curves, and hiss at strangers and sometimes frighten
them. They do not hiss at us. Perhaps they know that we would not
be very frightened if they did. The Elf likes this last part of
the walk, because she loves to imagine she is a goosegirl in a
fairy tale, who drives geese, until she meets a noble Prince, who
finds out that really she is a Princess all the time. Some days
the Imp is quite ready to pretend to be the Prince, and act the
whole story. But other days he is in a precious hurry to get to
the pond, and the poor Elf has to be a goosegirl without a
Prince, and that is a poor business. She soon tires of it, and
runs after us across the common.

Long before we reach the pond, we hear the quaack, quaack of the
ducks, and see them waddling along with their bodies very near
the ground by the muddy edges of the water, flopping hurriedly
first on one leg and then on the other. When we get near them we
can see that as they lift their feet they turn their toes in in a
manner that shows they have not been at all properly brought up.
But then without warning they throw themselves forward along the
water, and swim, looking, suddenly, quite graceful. Everything
looks quite graceful in its proper place, and almost everything
looks silly when it is anywhere else. Even swans, who are the
most beautiful of all birds in the water, look as ungainly as can
be when they walk along the ground. And if you put a fish, who
swims beautifully in the pool, out on the dry land, he just flops
and dies, and that is not a pretty sight at all.

The duck pond is very big and round. One bank of it is covered
with dark trees that overhang and make green pictures of
themselves in the water when the wind is still. And partly under
the trees, and partly at one side of them, the bank is high and
over-hanging and sandy, and in the sand there are little holes
where the sandmartins have their nests. The sandmartins are
rather like swallows, only instead of building clay nests under
the roof edges of a house, they bore holes with their beaks in
banks of earth, and make their nests inside them. A very, very
long time ago, we used to do just like them, burrowing into the
ground, making a passage with a cave at the end of it, and living
there under the earth. There are some of these old homes of ours
still left in some parts of the country. The Imp and the Elf are
fond of the sandmartins, because they are always in a hurry like
themselves. It is fine to see them fly swift and low over the
pond, and flutter at the mouth of the hole, and then vanish into
it, like mice into a crevice in the wall.

But the birds who matter most of the Duck Pond People, are, of
course, the Ducks. There are brown ducks, and white ducks, and
speckly ducks, and broods of golden ducklings, that the Elf is
fond of watching. The little ducklings waddle about just like
their mothers, opening and shutting their dirty yellow flat bills
that are always far too large for their bodies. They look like
bundles of grey fluff, with crooked legs and waggly necks.

[Illustration]

Often we lie flat on the green grass by the side of the pond,
when the sun is high and hot, and white clouds and a blue sky are
reflected in the water of the pond. We lie lazily and watch the
ducks swimming about, looking for their food. We see them plunge
in from the flat shelving mud, and swim out like a mottled fleet
of boats. They move their heads to this side and to that, and
suddenly plunge them down into the water, into the rotting leaves
and mud that lie at the bottom of the pond. And then, as they
swing their head up again, we see that something is going down
inside. And sometimes when the thing is big, a young and lively
frog, or a wriggling worm, we see it hanging out of the duck's
bill, waiting to be flung about, and gulped at, until, at last,
it goes politely down.

Ducks swim just like men in canoes, striking out first on one
side and then on the other, as if someone inside the duck were
driving her along with strokes of a paddle. As we lie on the
bank, we can watch the strong neat stroke, and see how the feet
turn up to be drawn back ready to strike out again, just as a
good oarsman feathers his oars. The really most amazing thing
about a duck, though, is to see it when it comes out of the
water. You would think it would be wet. But no, it looks quite
neat and dry, though it has only just come from swimming and
diving its head in the muddy pond. The Imp and the Elf always
used to be puzzled at that. And their old nurse had a habit of
saying to them:--"Why, to scold you is like pouring water on a
duck's back; it does no manner of good." And one day they said to
me, "Why does it do no manner of good to pour water on a duck's
back?" I did not know then, so we hunted in a wise book and there
was the reason, and when we watched a duck a little more
carefully than usual we saw the book told the truth. The ducks
keep oil in a hidden place in their tails, and oil their feathers
with it. That is what they do when they preen themselves. That is
how they manage to be always dry. For water will not stay on
anything that is oiled, and really, it is just as if the ducks
made their feathers into mackintoshes against the wet.

All the time that we are resting after the walk and watching the
ducks, we are keeping a look out for other of the Pond People;
and pretty soon we are sure to see some of them. The pond is full
of floating weed, the tiny round-leaved duckweed, floating in
green patches even in the middle of the pond, and the dainty
white crowfoot, near the banks. There is more duckweed than
anything else, and sometimes it is like a green carpet floating
on the water. As we lie on the bank, we see a sudden movement in
the duckweed, and something pushes its way up through the weed,
like a stick that has been held down at the bottom, and then
loosed of a sudden, so that it leaps up to the surface of the
water. The whole length of the Imp wriggles with excitement. It
may be a frog, or it may be a newt. There never was such a pond
as this for frogs, and we can nearly always find a newt, if we
want to see one.

Early in the year, about March, when we come over the common to
the pond, the Imp carries an empty jampot, with a piece of string
fastened round the rim of it, and looped over so as to make a
convenient handle. The Elf carries a little net, made of a loop
of strong wire, with the ends of it forced into a hollow bamboo,
and a circle of coarse white muslin stitched to the metal ring.
As soon as we are well on the common, the Imp runs on ahead, and
long before we catch him up we hear him shouting by the edge of
the pond, "Here it is. Here! Here!" And we find him pointing
eagerly to a big mass of pale brownish jelly lying in the water.
Big frogs lie about in the shallows, and flop off into the deeper
parts of the pond, as soon as our shadows are thrown across the
water. It is at this time of the year that the frogs do their
croaking. As the Elf says, "they are just like the birds, and
sing when they have their little ones by them." For that great
mass of jelly is made up, though you would not think it, of
hundreds of little black eggs, each in a jelly coat, and each
with a chance of growing up into a healthy young froglet.

When we have poked the net under the jelly, and after a little
struggling scooped some of it out on the bank, we can see the
black dots that are eggs quite plainly. The stuff is so slippery
and hard to hold that we can see that even the birds and water
things must find it difficult to manage. We rather think that the
jelly helps a little in keeping the tiny black eggs from being
gobbled before they have had time to grow up. But in spite of its
slippery sloppiness, we get a little of it inside the jampot, and
when we have dipped the jampot in the pond to give the eggs some
water, and dropped in a wisp of weed, that loses its wispiness as
soon as it can float again, we set off on our way home, planning
all sorts of things for little frogs, and making frog tales. Frog
tales, the Elf says, are best in summer, "they make you feel so
cool." But they are not at all bad in the spring when the Imp
holds the jampot up so that we can all see in, and wonder which
black spot holds the young frog prince, and which the frog
esquire.

If we liked, of course, we could come day after day to the pond,
and watch the eggs change and grow in the water. We sometimes do
this; but it is so much easier to watch them at home, that we
take some of the jelly away in the jampot every year, and put it
into a big bell jar set upside down, with sand in the bottom of
it, and plenty of water and green weed.

After a day or two the little black spots in the jelly become
fish-shaped, and give little wriggles from time to time, and at
last come out and away from the jelly, small wrigglers, that swim
about, and fasten under the weed in waggling rows.

The wriggler has a great deal to do yet before turning into a
frog. The tail part of him becomes clearer, like a black thread
with a fine web at either side of it, and the head of him becomes
fatter and rounded, like a black pea, and we can see feathery
things hanging out from behind it, which are called gills. Until
it grows lungs of its own, like any respectable frog, the
wriggling, black-headed creature breathes with these. The tail
grows bigger and bigger from day to day, and flaps like anything,
driving the little black tadpole (for that is what we call it)
through the water in the bell jar, as if it were a little boat,
swimming under water, with a busy paddle behind.

[Illustration]

One day, about this time, when we are looking at the tadpoles in
the jar, where it stands on the long bookcase in the study, the
Imp says, "I say, Ogre, isn't it time we saw the blood moving?"
And then I bring a little microscope, all bright gilt, out of its
case in the cupboard. We catch one of the little tadpoles, and
lay it on a slip of glass, and look at it down the long tube of
the microscope. The tail of it looks huge instead of tiny, and
all over it, inside it, we can see little pale blobs running to
and fro; and those are the tadpole's blood. The blobs look like
wee fishes swimming in narrow canals all over the tadpole's tail.
When the Elf has looked as well as the Imp, we let it slip back
from the slip of glass into the bowl, and see it flap away, as
merrily as before.

The tadpole grows fast now, and soon two little hindlegs sprout
out, and the forelegs follow them, and the little creature looks
like a frog with a tail, and a very big tail at that. And then
the tail begins to shrink, and every day the tadpole is more like
a frog, and more like a frog, until, at last, the tail goes
altogether, and there in the bell jar is a baby froglet, who is
quite ready to crawl out of the water on a floating piece of
cork, and begin life as a land and water gentleman instead of a
mere fish.

That is the way the frog young ones grow up. Their mother does
not bother about them at all. They have to do everything for
themselves. And they do it very energetically