"No one is allowed to disturb them. Our lakes and streams are alive with such. Those are black duck. These, in the tree, shags. These again, wild-geese."
"Ah, yes, standing on one leg, and sententiously surveying the water, now hiding their head so that we shall not see them."
"You muff! Don't you know a crane when you see one?"
"At least I recognize the 'rara avis.' Your black swans, now, are dignified."
"These," continued Frank, approaching another series of circular houses, "are our poultry-yards."
"You are death on triangles," remarked Tom, "like the first book of Euclid."
"All have a separate compartment for their fowls, and make what use they choose of this common run."
"That is, they take their chance of their ducks being considerably mixed, or being pecked at like a poor Benedict, or of being set upon by some game bird. I'd keep fighting-cocks if I went in for poultry here."
"'Every care and no responsibility,' is our rule."
"Who is that nice-looking girl fussing about those incubators?" asked Tom, as they looked in at a large shed, in which were artificial "mothers" and hundreds of chickens chirping. "I saw her just now at the milking-sheds."
"That's Miss Elms, the daughter of one of our overseers."
"There's no mistaking that face," replied Tom. "I saw it yesterday under peculiar circumstances. Thereby hangs a tale."
"Well, come home, and let's have it over the chops."
