MAY-FLIES IN MARCH 139 



or rich gardens under the hills, but by the great chalk- 

 stream, which, like the river of Egypt, winds through 

 the centre of the land, and distributes its waters in a 

 thousand swift and shining streams over the thirsty 

 meadows on its banks. There, while the grass upon 

 the hill-sides is still grey and sere, the hay already 

 shows half a crop, and the wide green blades seem to 

 suck up the moisture visibly from the streams which 

 trickle through their waving stems. Each furrow is a 

 flooded watercourse, not stagnant and foul, like the 

 muddy drains of Eastern fens, but bright and swiftly 

 flowing, a miniature of the great chalk-stream itself. 

 Where the valley narrows, as at the bridge of Itchen 

 Abbas, opposite the tall limes and avenues of Avington 

 Park, the teeming life of the river and its vale may be 

 viewed at close quarters. There, as the strange and 

 sudden heat of the March sun burnt and increased, and 

 the yellow coltsfoot flowers spread their petals wide, 

 like arms and bosoms, to the rays, we watched the 

 whole wild-life of the valley abandon itself to the 

 sense of exquisite happiness given by the first burst of 

 light and heat in the year. 



Those who would blame man for his interference 

 with Nature should at least give him credit for build- 

 ing the water-mill, with its dam and mill-stream, its 

 foaming " tumbling bay," its weir and double bridges. 

 The result at Itchen Abbas is to divide the river into a 

 wide and dancing shallow, studded with sedgy islands 

 above the mill, while below the two streams unite in 

 a swift and rushing current. The islands and reaches 



