HORSE-TAILS 215 



have gnawed so white, and washes his face as 

 nonchalantly as though the brake still hid him. 



He has beautiful golden brown fur, tousled 

 here and there, with beady eyes watching, mouth 

 twitching, and hands, but not arms, peeping from 

 bushes of long hair. Though he takes no notice 

 of us he hears before we do the tiny paddle that a 

 friend makes as he swims up. He faces quickly 

 round, and gives his friend clearly to understand 

 that the branch on which he sits is his own, and 

 will not hold two voles. So the other sheers off 

 a little and goes off, ploughing silvery furrows in 

 the water with his nose. A third vole is soon 

 seen, and even a fourth, and as one or the other 

 is always doing some new quaint thing they 

 fully entertain us for all the time we have to spare. 

 While the descending sun makes rosy the open 

 lake and paints rosy ripples among the shadows, 

 we watch our voles till we imagine them beavers 

 playing the old part they played when horse-tails, 

 already of very ancient growth, were a greater 

 power in the land than they are to-day. 



What is the connection between these flower- 

 less, fruitless canes of the horse-tails and the 

 vetches, poppies, foxgloves that drive them into 

 the wood and press them into the swamp. What 

 .have the short-flighted flies to do with the butter- 

 flies of all colours, the bees banded with gold and 

 orange and equipped with most special apparatus 

 for collecting honey and pollen ? The eye of 

 faith, resting here and there on the landmarks of 



