



Produced by Heather Strickland & Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org





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