Pond and Stream

by Arthur Ransome

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.

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.