WHERE GRASS IS GREEN. 151 



are not easy birds to watch, but as the pollards 

 stand close to the fall of water, we may manage 

 to get sufficiently near for our glass to bring him 

 into such close view that it seems as though we 

 might stroke his bright blue feathers if we wished. 

 What a picture it makes, this pure spring water 

 as it tumbles down the fresh green of the young 

 tangle that surrounds it ! But on no canvas could 

 the bubble and the sparkle of it all be reproduced, 

 as the water winds and leaps round about and 

 over the moss-covered moorland stones; whilst the 

 swallows dash up and down the stream, over the 

 meadow, and back again. 



From some tree in the woods close at hand 

 cuckoo ! cuckoo ! cuckoo ! is shouted out ; the 

 willow -wrens and the chiff-chaffs add their little 

 notes to swell the harmony; a little further down 

 there is the swirl and ripple of the brook. The 

 kingfisher is still there, and if I am not mistaken, 

 good trout are in the bubbling fall beneath him. 

 Now he plunges, not into the middle of the pool, 

 but just on one side of it, for little fish gain their 

 strength in shallow water that runs sharply. What 

 he has got we do not see clearly ; it is a fish of 



