THE WOOD-WREN 23 



the robin in the hazel, the wren in his ivied 

 retreat among the lowest branches of the haw- 

 thorn, " Silver Wings " the chaffinch on the 

 topmost bough of a beech, sang merrily their 

 morning songs ; the thrush, forgetful of the 

 night's alarm., piped gaily in the thick bushes 

 around his mud-built nest. The wild, whistling 

 carol of the dipper came from the shallows up- 

 stream, where, with snow-white waistcoat, and 

 restless, flirting tail, the bird stood on a rock 

 jutting out into the deep, shadowed flood at the 

 far side of the rapids. Now and then a sandpiper, 

 uttering a shrill, plaintive call, glanced by on 

 pointed pinions as he skirted the island and sped 

 from shallow to shallow. 



The day wore on ; the water-flies left their 

 hiding-places under the leaves, or rose from their 

 pupa-cases in the grass, and with irregular 

 flights moved to and fro beneath the fringing 

 alders on the river reach. The hovering green- 

 tail dimpled the circling backwaters as she de- 

 posited her eggs on the surface ; the blue dun 

 strayed, whirling in a film of fragile wings, 

 towards the alder clumps ; that May-fly of the 

 mountain torrent, the big March brown, ranged 

 swiftly from bank to bank. The island was alive 

 with singing birds ; every feathered inhabitant 

 of wood and field seemed to have come hither 

 for the daily feast of flies. Again and again the 



