OTTER HUNTING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING 107 



it is hard to say. Wales, Devonshire, Surrey, Hampshire, 

 Northamptonshire, any country where streams are huntable, 

 that is to say, not deep or with heavy water, is equally 

 good for the sport. On the left of our present stream 

 rises a bank of young wheat, fringed with grass and early 

 flowers. Above this runs a line of woodland, bright 

 green in its young dress, but softening in outline and 

 dimming into blue shadows as it stretches away, till it 

 turns the shoulder of the hill to form the rampart of 

 another vale. But here, on this side of the river, all is 

 flat. The water meadows lie here, runnelled in all directions 

 by ' carriers ' — cuts where the water is guided for the 

 irrigation of the land. Here and there the water-gates 

 are closed and the little streams shut back ; and so in 

 places the water floods over the edges and away among 

 the grass roots, till there comes up a rank green swathe 

 that makes the first early summer crop. Between the 

 grasses the running water glistens and sparkles in the 

 morning sun, and all across the water meadows stretches 

 a web of rising mist ; here in lines of bluey whiteness, 

 there in banks of smoke-like billows, curling up to lose 

 themselves in vapour under the growing warmth. 



A little farther down, a backwater leaves the stream, 

 and leads into a tract of grass and rushes that mark the 

 position of an old duck decoy. It is many a year since 

 the decoy was worked, yet some of the old screens still 

 show themselves among the rushes, though the channels 

 and pipes are silted up. It is a marvellously peaceful 



