site side is a dense belt of tall reeds, which in the summer is alive with the low songs of the reed wrens. These birds breed in great abundance here, and their nests are worthy of description. Three or four tall reeds are chosen, and supported by these, at some distance from the water, the nest is made. It is singularly deep in structure, with the top contracted so as to form a purse-like receptacle for the eggs, which are thus prevented from rolling out when the reeds bend before the wind. It is slightly but strongly made, chiefly of coarse grasses, and the eggs are of a mottled, greenish brown. In seeking the nests the wader must beware of the decayed reeds, which have left a pavement of sharp-fanged stumps.

Peculiar to this mere, and I think to no other sheet of water in England, are the green moss balls (Conferva agagropila) and brown balls composed of fir leaves. It is supposed that the bottom of the mere is troubled with conflicting eddies and currents, caused no doubt by springs, and that these currents catch up the fir leaves that fall from the trees on the south side of the mere and roll them up, together with particles of confervæ, into balls of different sizes, even up to two feet in diameter. The moss balls are composed entirely of confervæ. The currents convey these balls to the opposite side of the mere (where the reeds are), and there

they may be found in thousands at a depth of three or four feet. The cohesion of each ball is perfect. The other meres present nothing more noticeable in their appearance or denizens than those already described. This mere district is often visited by rare birds. In a keeper's house I have seen a splendid specimen of a peregrine falcon, which he had shot some time ago. He also informed me that he had killed an osprey here, and that another had been seen haunting one of the meres. Altogether the district of the Shropshire meres presents a rich field, both to the observer of natural history and to the lover of quiet woodland and lake

THEY told me Pan was dead, and I was fain
To think that, with the other gods, his reign
Was over, and the onward march of truth
Had proved him nothing but in very sooth
A mere tradition of the olden time,

When man in fancy heard his mystic rhyme
In cadence sad and sweet ring through the wood.
(Pan played alone, but still he deemed it good
That wandering mortal sometimes heard his playing
On reedy flute, from where the bulrush swaying
In summer breezes, curtained in his home,
Roofed for a roof with white and azure dome.-
For Pan was Nature's god, and had great love
For Nature's brother, Man, and oft he strove

To soften Man with song, that he might gain
Sweet sympathy and healing from the strain.)

They told me Pan was dead, and I, who love
The brown, sweet earth below and sky above,
And
green of summer trees, and dance of leaves
In flood of sunshine, and the cloud which weaves
Long, shifting shadows 'mong the sheeny corn;
Who love to hear the lark's dear carol borne
Down from the dazzling light which floods the day,
To gladden the inner soul, and fright away
What's there of care and pain; who, in a word,
Love Nature dearly, and would love her Lord
The more through her, grieved her interpreter—
Great Pan was but a myth, and dead to her.

So musing and so sorrowing, down the stream
I floated, while the misty weather-gleam
Grew golden, and the delicate pearly green
Of quiet sunset barred the western sheen.
Between the banks all bright with marigold

And starlike daisies, meadow-sweet, and manifold
Such odorous flowers, and fringed with pendent trees
That kissed the quiet wave and sang low lullabies,
Stirred by soft breezes-my light boat drew on

With motion gentle as a floating swan,

Till in a quiet cove she drove aground

Beneath the silvering willows.

All around

The quiet peace of evening fell, and sound
Was only half a sound, that more profound
The silence made. The endless monotone
Of gnats that danced in level lanes of light
Part of the silence seemed. The cushat's moan
From distant coppice saddened the coming night.
The while the river o'er its shallows ran
I lay and thought me of the great god Pan,
And through my musings ran a vague regret,
A longing which my inner soul did fret

(As seeming wrong), that all the pulsing life
And varied beauty with which earth was rife
Had no alive and outward bodiment
Wherewith the soul in converse reverent
Might hold commune: a being set between
Man and his Maker.

As the yellow sheen

Died out of the West, and from the depth of blue

Shone faint white glimmerings where the stars hung

through,

I heard a low, clear strain come up the vale;

As when in April nights the nightingale
Rehearses his love-song, but through it ran
A rhythm so exceeding sweet that Pan
Alone could be the player. No halt or flaw