; O'er Fell and Dale 



ground an old-time deposit of the river in mighty 

 flood. It is besprinkled with tufts of rushes and en- 

 croaching patches of bracken, with here and there a 

 moss-grown boulder peeping out in forlorn isolation. 

 On either hand it is flanked by steeply rising green hills 

 studded all over with outcrops of grey limestone. 

 Through the middle the river meanders, a mere trickle 

 shining in the sunlight like a snail's silvery trail, wearing 

 away when in spate first one bank and then the other, 

 making excellent breeding-places for innumerable sand 

 martins that skim and twirl over its pools and rippling 

 shallows all the livelong day, and you will be able to 

 visualize the headquarters of the sandpiper and yellow 

 wagtail in the months of May and June. 



Two hundred yards farther up-stream the water 

 tumbles through a rocky gorge. Here it is so cabined 

 and confined that it rushes in a white jet down into a 

 rocky funnel fifteen feet deep. In dry weather this 

 giant funnel is never quite full, because the water 

 escapes through a hole in its lower rim and bubbles up 

 in the deep pool below, making it look like the surface 

 of that in a boiling kettle. Of course, in flood time a lot 

 of the stream is spilt over the rim of the funnel, and, 

 meeting the current rushing up from below, creates a 

 great turmoil. 



Here you can always find a pair of dippers breeding 

 in perfect safety on the upper edge of a damp, un- 

 approachable slope of overhung rock forming the far 

 side of the funnel, and quite above the high- water mark 

 of anything but an abnormal flood. If you attempted 



