WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 69 



at the sources the aquatic grasses bend over, growing 

 thickly, and hide it from view. But pressing these 

 down, and parting them with the hand, you may trace 

 the exact place where it rises, gently oozing forth 

 without a sound. 



Lower down, where the streamlet is stronger and has 

 worn a groove now rushing over a floor of tiny flints, 

 now partly buoyed up and chafing against a smooth 

 round lump of rubble there is a pleasant murmur 

 audible at a short distance. Still farther from the 

 source, where, grown wider, the shallow water shoots 

 swiftly over a steeper gradient, the undulations of its 

 surface cross each other, plaiting a pattern like four 

 strands interwoven. The resemblance to the pattern 

 of four rushes which the country children delight to 

 plait together as they wander by the brooks is so close 

 as almost to suggest the derivation of the art of weav- 

 ing rushes, flags, and willows by the hand. The sheep 

 grazing at will in the coombe eat off the herbage too 

 closely to permit of many flowers. Where the springs 

 join and irrigate a broader strip there grows a little 

 watercress, and some brooklime, said to be poisonous 

 and occasionally mistaken for the cress ; a stray cuckoo 

 flower shows its pale lilac petals in spring, and a few 

 bunches of rushes are scattered round. They do not 

 reach any height or size ; they seem dry and sapless, 

 totally unlike the tall green succulent rush of the 

 meadows far below. 



A water-wagtail comes now and then ; sometimes 

 the yellow variety, whose colour in the spring is so 



