io NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR 



them. Perpetual reinforcements rushing from 

 higher reaches continued the contest, but with 

 always the same result ; the weaker rivulet, how- 

 ever boisterously it may have laughed from ferny 

 ledges, only leaped into a grave. It might be said 

 literally to feed the rival in which it is merged, for 

 nutrition is but little more than absorption. 



The violence of the stream is suggested by its 

 voice, which is a babel. In the distance the sounds 

 blend to a soothing strain, but near they are a 

 boisterous chorus, a wrangle of waterfalls. Some 

 of the voices in this hurly-burly are sweet, but they 

 may be lost in the roar of an arching jet which 

 leaps from a high barrier, a crush of twigs and 

 leaves, a ledge of rock, or perchance from some 

 crumpled old tin canister which once contained 

 charges for a gun, or bait for the trout whose 

 young now sometimes pause in the hollow 

 below it. 



Often its greatest strife is caused by the narrow- 

 ing of the course of the stream where it plunges 

 down a fall into the shade and sends forth a roar 

 no merry trills and doubles like those sung from 

 easy gradients, but hisses and rough shouts, almost 



