MINUTE CRAKE. 373 



pursuing for more than a mile the track through 

 the bush, which here and there opens on each side 

 into secluded grassy glades, adorned with many 

 flowers, and haunted by gay butterflies, the gradual 

 predominance of marsh plants, sagittaria, ginger- 

 fern, bulrush, and black-withe, to the exclusion 

 at length, of every thing else, warns us of our ap- 

 proach to the river, and at length we come sud- 

 denly upon it in all its beauty. Emerging darkly 

 into view from beneath overhanging trees on the 

 right, upon which is spread a thick drapery of con- 

 volvuli, whose lovely festoons, gemmed with purple 

 and green, depend to the very surface of the water, 

 the stream gurgles along a pebbly bed, or here 

 and there glides with treacherous smoothness over 

 quicksands hidden by the waving tresses of the dark 

 green equisetum ; and is presently lost again in 

 the meandering of its tortuous course through the 

 bushes. 



Many sorts of water-fowl haunt this darkling 

 stream : scarlet-fronted Gallinules, that were feed- 

 ing at the edge, alarmed at our approach, flutter 

 along the surface with much splashing of the water 

 and laborious flapping of their wings, to seek con- 

 cealment; while the less timid, but more beautiful 

 Sultana bridles its purple neck, and peeps at us 

 from the shadow of the overarching withes, or walks 

 calmly away over the shallows. The harsh scream 

 of the Little Bittern comes fitfully from the reedy 

 morass, and the cry of the Clucking-hen from its 

 watch-post above ; the little Squat-ducks are diving 

 in the eddies of the stream, the Blue Kingfisher 



