THE TROUT STREAM 35 



always seemed to me, from birdsnesting diiys 

 down to the present time, that the most interesting 

 flowers and some of the most interesting insects, 

 and not a few of the most interesting birds are to 

 be found in places too often — or should I say 

 fortunately often ? — inaccessible save to the man 

 who is so clad as to be able without discomfort to 

 go up to or above his knees in water. 



Bv the banks of the Test the water rail, the 

 kingfisher — neither bird I am happy to think, so 

 rare in the south of England as sometimes 

 supposed — the wild duck, the snipe, the yellow 

 wagtail, and the reed warbler are all to be found 

 breeding in spring and early summer ; and it 

 would surely be hard to name a group of more 

 interesting and beautiful birds than these species 

 form when taken together. Of course this little 

 group is very far from including all the birds which 

 are constantly to be found about the banks of the 

 chalk stream in the nesting season. The stream, 

 or the splendid wealth of vegetation about it, 

 draws a large number of our most familiar resident 

 and migratory species. From source to sea the 

 pure chalk stream is teeming with bird life, and 

 loud during a portion of the summer with bird 

 language ; nightingales in every coppice, thicket, 

 and hedgerow by the stream ; sedge-warblers never 

 silent while the da}'light lasts, and sometimes 

 inclined to be noisy after it has faded away ; 

 corncrakes, wherever there is a thick crop of 

 meadow grass, with note unlovely perhaps when 

 considered, but somehow never wearisome ; demon- 

 strative moor-hens and undemonstrative dabchicks 

 or little grebes closer in among the tangle of the 

 river banks, and especially in creeks and bye 



D 2 



