136 ON SURREY HILLS. 



river, is called the Pigeon-holes, on account of the 

 great number of birds that shelter there. Large 

 beech-trees, many of them decayed or decaying, 

 stand out, bleached and bare, like skeleton trees. 

 Some of them had been undermined long ago, and 

 fallen into the river, which runs shallow here tearing 

 down great masses of chalk soil, that made small 

 islands in the bed of the river ; whilst the trees formed 

 bridges across from bank to bank. Their branches 

 and roots, tangled in all directions, gave the river- 

 plants a resting-place for their roots in the earth that 

 they brought with them in their fall, and a rare shelter 

 was there for the wild creatures. The moor -hen 

 slipped along, in and out ; water-rats nibbled away 

 at the sedges ; water-lilies opened their fair blossoms 

 to the sun's gaze, all undisturbed. And here you 

 could listen to the yike, yike, yike of the green wood- 

 pecker, and watch him at his work ; or to the cooing 

 of the pigeons, and the chatter of the sedge-warblers, 

 which knew well that the step of rude man, or the 

 hand of depredating boy, seldom marred the joy of 

 existence in this secluded spot. 



As to fish, the bed of the river actually seemed to 

 move with them, as they swam up and down in the 



