Old Ditches. 87 



and ending in the brook ; perfect storehouses these 

 of all aquatic life. Fish used to go up them for 

 shelter (they were as deep or deeper than the brook 

 itself, and it was a good jump for a man across) and 

 to feed on the insects blown off the overhanging trees 

 and bushes or brought down by the streamlet drain- 

 ing the field above. Wild duck made their nests 

 among the rushes, sitting there while their beautiful 

 consorts, the mallards, swam lonely in the mere^ 

 Moorhens were busy in the weeds, or came out to 

 feed upon the sward. 



Such great ditches are now filled up, and drains 

 take their place. It is better so, no doubt, in a purely 

 utilitarian sense, but the fish haunt the spot no more. 

 Some of the reaches of the brook, where the ground 

 was flat and boggy, used to resemble a long narrow 

 lake, extremely shallow, with the deeper current 

 running yards away from the shore : and here the 

 snipe came in the winter. But the banks are now 

 made up higher by artificial means, and the marsh is 

 dry. All these changes diminish those aquatic nooks 

 and corners in which fish love to linger. 



Finally came the weed said to have been imported 

 from America, pushing its way up stream, and filling 

 it with an abominable mass of vegetable matter that 

 no fish could enter. Hereabouts, however, this pest 



