UPON A DAY 221 



But the sand-martins take no notice of the swimmer's 

 head. In and out of their nests they dart, twittering 

 cheerily all the while. Poor little birds ! They have 

 chosen a risky nesting-place. Sometimes there comes, 

 a summer flood, and then all their nursery cares are \\^r^J . 



gone for nothing. It is true they may make a second 

 nest, but it surely must be weary work, unattended 

 though it seems to be with any sense of loss of interest. 

 Even the sharp eye of the kingfisher is deceived at 

 first. From his perch on a dead alder-bough he 

 flashes like a jewel into the stream, sending up a 

 little cloud of spray, as with a single movement he 

 seizes a minnow and returns to his vantage point. It — 

 is only in the early morning that the kingfisher fishes ' 

 -here : at other times of the day he is in seclusion up 

 the brook. Very beautiful is the brook in itself and 

 in all its surroundings. Every river feature is to be 

 found here in little. Here it flows in deep, dark pools 

 where the big white-lipped chub lie wary and expec- 

 tant, waiting for moth or caterpillar to drop from off 

 the soft blue willows that almost span the stream. 

 Here it tinkles fairy music over tiny waterfalls, and on 

 again past brown stones and golden gravel to where 

 broad beds of flowering crowfoot show up like snow in 

 the noonday sun. The very banks themselves are 



