130 Sporting Sketches 



slipped here and there, and pitched grand trees, 

 top first, into the stream. And where they fell they 

 lay, perhaps for several seasons, until an unusually 

 heavy flood tore them from their anchorages and 

 flung them, battered and whitening, against some 

 projection lower down, there to await the fiercer 

 mood of an angrier torrent. 



Such wrecks occurred at short intervals, and he 

 who knew the river knew what to do at such points. 

 With one tree already well-nigh submerged, and its 

 fellow bending far over it and only awaiting a wind 

 from the proper point to complete its fall, the bass 

 found ideal quarters. The submerged tree was a 

 fortress, from which dusky freebooters might raid 

 at will. The overhanging trees cast a shadow of 

 velvet darkness, fit screen for piratical deeds, and 

 well ! you know some grubs and larvae are ridicu- 

 lously fat and careless, and bound to slip from the 

 smooth twig now and then. And young birds, too ! 

 It's simply awful the pace infants go these days. A 

 young, naked thing, with its eyes barely open, actu- 

 ally trying to fly ! and it comes down through the 

 leaves with a spat-spat, its silly, pink-meaty abortions 

 of wings spread and its wretched little bare legs 

 kicking, and it lands in the water ? Occasionally. 

 Sometimes it lands directly in a bass, and again the 

 bass has to make a rush of a yard or so, to save the 

 bird from drowning. 



And then, again a few feet of the overhanging sod 

 break away. Those mice are so silly! They will 

 nest in the eave, as it were ; and then they must bore 

 up so as to let down the surface water when the rain 

 is busy. And then the whole affair tumbles in, and 



