88 HILLSIDE, ROCK, AND DALE 



his wings, and cheeps and chows to himself in such 

 a contented style, and at length when nearly dry 

 enters the water again. A cuckoo silently settles in 

 the trees above, and calls many times, " laughing " 

 between every few notes. The magpie returns, flies 

 round the trees, then alights in a tall ash. Swallows 

 dart up and down above the water, sometimes "dip- 

 ping" when taking a fly. Their nests are under the 

 old rustic bridge, and by the side of this, in a hole in 

 the ground, a pair of coal-tits have a nest ; we care- 

 fully lift a patch of grass, and find it full of hungry 

 young birds, with beaks wide open, all clamouring 

 for food. Some angry notes are uttered by the 

 mother bird hard by, and we replace the turf and 

 proceed up the stream. Beck^ beck> calls a frightened 

 moor-hen, while her little black brood scramble up 

 the banks, and when all are concealed behind stones 

 or under bushes, she swims underneath a thick bush 

 where the wild rose branches dip into the stream. 

 Water-voles the beavers of our English streams 

 are seen sitting on the banks ; they stare well at 

 any intruder, and seem surprised to be disturbed, 

 for few people wander along this secluded Hampshire 

 brook. Running as it does through that great tract 

 of moor and woodland the New Forest, it is as 

 unfrequented as some of the delightful " dipper " 

 streams of the north. 



A flash of green darts by, then another, and 



