io8 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



lower down has here filled up the ditch to some height, 

 making a footstool. 



In the ditch lie numbers of last year's oak leaves, which 

 so sturdily resist decay. All the winter and spring they 

 were soaked by the water from the ' land-springs ' as 

 those which only run in wet weather are called draining 

 into it, and to that water they communicated a peculiar 

 flavour, slightly astringent. Even moderate-sized stream- 

 lets become tainted in the latter part of the autumn by the 

 mass of leaves they carry down, or filter through, in wood- 

 land districts. Often the cottagers draw their water from 

 a small pool filled by such a ditch, and coated at the 

 bottom with a thick layer of decomposing leaves. The 

 taste of this water is strong enough to overcome the flavour 

 of their weak tea, yet they would rather use such water 

 than walk fifty yards to a brook. It must, however, be 

 admitted that the brooks at that time are also tinctured 

 with leaf, and there seems to be no harm in it. 



Out from among these dead leaves in the ditch pro- 

 trudes a crooked branch fallen long since from the oak, 

 and covered with grey lichen. On the right hand a 

 tangled thicket of bramble with its uneven-shaped stems 

 closes the spot in, and on the left a stole of hazel rises 

 with the parasitical ' hardy fern ' fringing it near the earth. 

 The outer bark of the hazel is very thin ; it is of a dark- 

 mottled hue ; bruise it roughly, and the inner bark shows 

 a bright green. The lowly ivy creeps over the bank its 



