130 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



from a throat not capable of a full note. There are 

 usually two together, and they pass and re-pass all day 

 as you fish, but if followed are not to be observed with- 

 out care. I came on the colley too suddenly the first 

 time, at a bend of the river ; he was beneath the bank 

 towards me, and flew out from under my feet, so that 

 I did not see him till he was on the wing. Away he 

 fiew with a call like a young bird just tumbled out of 

 its nest, following the curves of the stream. Presently 

 I saw him through an alder bush which hid me ; he 

 was perched on a root of alder under the opposite bank. 

 Worn away by the stream the dissolved earth had left 

 the roots exposed, the colley was on one of them ; in a 

 moment he stepped on to the shore under the hollow, and 

 was hidden behind the roots under a moss-grown stole. 

 When he came out he saw me, and stopped feeding. 



He bobbed himself up and down as he perched 

 on the root in the oddest manner, bending his legs 

 so that his body almost touched his perch, and 

 rising again quickly, this repeated in quick succession 

 as if curtsying. This motion with him is a sign of 

 uncertainty — it shows suspicion ; after he had bobbed 

 to me ten times off" he went. I found him next on a 

 stone in the middle of the river ; it stood up above the 

 surface of a rapid connecting two pools. Like the 

 trout, the colley always feeds at the rapids, and flies as 

 they swim, from fall to fall. He was bobbing up and 

 down, his legs bent, and his rusty brown body went up 

 and down, but as I was hidden by a hedge he gained 

 confidence, suspended his curtsying, and began to feed. 

 First he looked all round the stone, and then stepped 

 to another similar island in the midst of the rushino: 



