254 ON SURREY HILLS. 



prover on Nature's laws is often but a poor bungler, 

 who thinks he knows more than the Creator of the 

 water and of the creatures that live in it. 



One moorland brook comes before me as I write 

 not a stream one that a first-class steeplechaser 

 could barely clear with his blood up, and at his full 

 stride. A full mile in length it is, and from four to 

 five feet deep, with sand shallows here and there. 

 In it I, with as cheeky a lot of schoolboys as ever 

 thrashed larrupped, we called it peoples' doors or 

 robbed apple-orchards, learned to swim. When we 

 tired of swimming, we would make for the glorious 

 weeds that flourished in the shallower portions, and 

 bury ourselves in them. No couch of eider-down 

 could be half so luxurious as the waving, soft bright 

 green weeds, containing Nature's stores of food for 

 the fish and aquatic birds both swimmers and 

 waders. Not only did we bathe there, but we 

 fished not with lines, but with our towels used as 

 nets ; a deadly proceeding for the fish. Yet it did 

 not lessen their numbers, it only made room for 

 others to come down from higher up-stream. Pre- 

 served water, so-called, was at that time unknown. 



I have examined the masses of weed carefully and 



