A LONDON TROUT 



brook, and is more resorted to by sedge-reedlings, 

 or sedge-birds, as they are variously called, than 

 any place I know, even in the remotest country. 



Generally it has been difficult to see them, be- 

 cause the withey is in leaf when they come, and 

 the leaves and sheaves of innumerable rods hide 

 them, while the ground beneath is covered by a 

 thick growth of sedges and flags, to which the 

 birds descend. It happened once, however, that 

 the withey stoles had been polled, and in the spring 

 the boughs were short and small. At the same 

 time, the easterly winds checked the sedges, so that 

 they were hardly half their height, and the flags 

 were thin, and not much taller, when the sedge- 

 birds came, so that they for once found but little 

 cover, and could be seen to advantage. 



There could not have been less than fifteen in 

 the plantation, two frequented some bushes beside 

 a pond near by, some stayed in scattered willows 

 farther down the stream. They sang so much 

 they scarcely seemed to have time to feed. While 

 approaching one that was singing by gently walk- 

 ing on the sward by the road-side, or where thick 

 dust deadened the footsteps, suddenly another would 

 commence in the low thorn hedge on a branch, so 

 near that it could be touched with a walking stick. 

 Yet though so near the bird was not wholly visible 

 he was partly concealed behind a fork of the 

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