26 Spring on a Hill-stream 



attack a man in defence of her young. Not all our 

 sympathy is owed to the rabbit shrieking in the 

 covert, or the hedge-sparrow which sees its young 

 devoured and will not be comforted. When the 

 idle sunbeams and the dropping water have taken 

 our minds beyond all thoughts of good and evil 

 into a soulless fairyland, the stoat on the beach 

 brings them back again. Mysterious as is the 

 beauty of the hidden water-garden, there is a mystery 

 much nearer to us in the red body rippling along 

 the strand. 



Frogs spawn in March and April in the stagnant 

 channels cut here and there in the more level mea- 

 dows by floods. There they deposit the masses of 

 glutinous eggs which hatch a little later into swarms 

 of tadpoles ; and thither chiefly resort the long, 

 green grass-snakes, which to a great extent live 

 upon frogs. When they bestir themselves in the 

 first warm days of spring, these large but harmless 

 snakes are often to be met with about the river - 

 banks, and will plunge boldly in to swim from shore 

 to shore, breasting a strong current bravely, with 

 heads and yellow throats raised above the water. 

 Both grass-snakes and frogs are seen less often by 

 the steeper streams plunging down from the moors. 

 There the adder is not uncommon on the dry 

 slopes of heather and bracken above the stream ; 

 and where the stream flows through copses and 

 thickets, toads come down to spawn in the still 

 pools at its side. Toads drop their spawn in long 

 strings, easily distinguishable from the shapeless 

 masses of frog's spawn ; it is often found in April 



