BIRDS OF THE RIVER 339 



stream one finds one's self at length in a tunnel 

 of overarching greenery. Very pleasant it is to 

 wander with an eight-foot rod along this mossy, 

 murmuring thoroughfare — there is no other track 

 through the trees which are massed on the sides of 

 the ravine on either hand — and to escape the sun 

 which is turning the lower reaches into unfishable 

 silver. It is needful to wade deep, for one must take 

 the water, shallows and pools alike, as it comes, and 

 so avoid the need of landing — a disastrous thing to 

 net and fly-cast — and of forcing a passage through 

 the interminable tangle of bough and leaf. 



The river is broken here into still pools and rest- 

 less rippling flats. By the reef of moss-grown rocks, 

 it appears to wait and to gather strength ; then 

 it curves and rushes beneath outstretching boughs 

 which touch its current, soon to spread itself out so 

 thinly that even the pebbles break its course, and 

 it seems incapable of hiding any fish greater than a 

 minnow. On the right is a steep bank overhanging 

 a foaming little torrent. At the top of this bank, 

 an ancient oak stands with deep rifts and caverns 

 in its once mighty trunk. The bank has been worn 

 down by the stress of many spates, exposing the 

 roots, which now form a tangled mass projecting 

 over the water. As one waits beneath the opposite 

 bank screened by the leaves, a sudden quick cry 

 comes, and a streak of living blue flashes down 

 the stream. Now the Kingfisher, in its garb of 

 sapphire, emerald and ruddy gold, alights abruptly 

 upon the outstretched roots beneath the oak, pauses 

 for a moment, then turns and disappears within a 

 hole. 



