18 STREAMLETS AND THEIR BANKS. 



See gentle brooks, how quietly they glide, 

 Kissing the rugged banks on either side ; 

 While in their crystal streams at once they show, 

 And with them feed the flow'rs which they bestow, 

 Though rudely throng' d by a too near embrace, 

 In gentle murmurs they keep on their race. 



DENHAM. 



I HAVE occasionally found myself strolling on the 

 banks of one of those little narrow streams which 

 wriggle, if the expression may be used, through 

 some green verdant meadows. Here and there 

 bull-rushes, water-docks, and other aquatic plants 

 nearly meet as they bend towards each other from 

 either side. In some places there are deep holes, 

 generally under the roots of some stunted alder or 

 willow - pollard, and here and there, in places 

 where cattle have made a passage, the water 

 trickles over a gravelly bottom,* sparkling as the 

 sun-beams fall upon it. The banks are generally 

 undermined by the winter floods, and are full of 

 rat holes, one of which is occasionally the resort 

 of the kingfisher, which darts by now and then 

 with a silent rapidity. Water-hens are abundant 

 in these localities, and may be seen of an evening 



* This is a favourite place of resort for a swarm of little fish 

 " fry innumerable." 



