THE DEVIL'S PUNCHBOWL. 



determined fighters, as always happens with 

 brilliantly decorated birds, fishes, reptiles, 

 and insects. None but the brave deserve 

 the fair ; and bravery and aesthetic taste 

 seem to go together. Indeed, the courageous 

 little trout will face and drive away a 

 murderous pike who menaces his home, 

 while stickleback will engage one another 

 in such sanguinary fights for the possession 

 of their mates that only the Kilkenny cats 

 can be named in the same day with them. 



The other inhabitants of the tiny brook 

 are far more numerous than you would 

 imagine. Miller's-thumbs poke their big 

 black heads out of holes in the clay bank 

 at every quiet corner. Crayfish hide among 

 the weeds or dart between the sedges. 

 Stone-loach flit down stream like rapid 

 shadows when you lift the bigger pebbles, 

 under which they lie skulking. As for 

 caddis-worms and water-spiders and the 

 larvae of dragon-flies, they are there by the 

 hundred ; while the full-blown insects living 

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