92 MY DEVON YEAR 



from time to time, like specks of sunlight, wheel and 

 turn at great altitudes above the valley. 



Now old bridge, dead waters, and grass-grown tow- 

 path belong to the rabbits, the moor-hens and dab- 

 chicks, the little rats and the gilded legions of the 

 dragon-fly. A rabbit lies at full stretch here ; I have 

 surprised him sunning his white furry belly like a cat. 

 The moorhens build a cunning nest of dead sedges 

 twisted among young living ones and piled upwards 

 until a little plateau rises in the water, a grey oasis 

 within whose cup lie purple-mottled eggs. Many such 

 occur within reach of hand along the old canal, and 

 when chicks are hatched, the mother moorhens 

 hasten away at sight of danger, with a flash of white 

 feathers in their flirting tails, or, snugly concealed, 

 utter whispering warnings to their tiny young, who, 

 from an experience extending over four-and-twenty 

 hours, still feel disposed to trust mankind. They are 

 covered with black down ; their bills are dabbed with 

 crimson, and if fear falls on them, they lift up their 

 voices, squeak the nature of the peril, and with small 

 webbed feet and extended wings skim like water-flies 

 along the surface of the stream until kindly sedges 

 hide them. 



A kaleidoscopic rainbow of the many - coloured 

 odonata lights every bend and reach of the old canal. 

 These dragon-flies, and devil's darning-needles, gleam 

 and dance and rustle, gem the brown scum and 

 glaucous sedges, take their fill of love in mid -air, 

 spangle the shadows, and make sunshine the brighter 



