A FAVOURED SPOT 171 



past, the purple tint on its back gleaming in the 

 sunlight, followed by a whole posse of house- 

 martins, the latter conspicuous by the white on 

 their backs, and amongst them, here and there, a 

 sand-martin in gray coat and white shirt-front. 

 The stream is now fairly teeming with life, yet 

 half an hour ago not a bird was visible. The 

 widening circles on the surface of the water show 

 that the trout are beginning to rouse themselves 

 from their afternoon slumbers, and so, for the 

 best part of the next hour, birds and fish are alike 

 busily employed in waging war on the hapless 

 duns, but few of which survive the onslaught. 

 By degrees the swallows and martins lessen in 

 numbers, till but one or two of the more inde- 

 fatigable of the party are left, and they too at 

 last take their departure. The flycatcher, finding 

 that business is getting somewhat slack, makes 

 off also. The surface of the water is now no 

 longer dimpled by the rising fish, and save where 

 the sunlight marks the passage of a water-vole as 

 he crosses to the farther bank, or the hoarse croak 

 of the moor-hen as she collects her family for their 

 evening meal is heard in the reed-beds, all is 

 still as before. 



Nor is a withy-bed without its attractions in the 

 winter evenings, when, in the glow of the setting 

 sun, the leafless branches appear like rods of fiery 

 gold. It is there, while waiting for wild-duck or 

 snipe, that the birds which come in to roost can be 

 better observed than when the willow-rods are in 



