CHAPTER VI. By the Riverside 



IT always seems to me that a complete har- 

 mony exists between any species of bird 

 and the district it naturally inhabits, though 

 whether it is the spirit of the scene that is 

 embodied in the bird, or whether it is the bird 

 that helps to give the scene its special character in 

 my mind, I cannot say. Perhaps both combine ; 

 at any rate there the impression is, and some birds, 

 of course, convey it more strongly than others. 

 I cannot think of a Dipper, for instance, without 

 picturing a river such as our Devonshire Lyn 

 if there be another such splashing merrily 

 against the huge moss-grown boulders that strew 

 its bed, rushing round those it cannot get over in 

 its impetuous haste to reach the sea, and here 

 and there swirling aside into some deep dark 

 pool, where the trout lie under the shadow of 

 the overhanging trees. Every scene has its own 

 characteristic birds, and we must know our river 

 before we can tell what birds to expect beside it. 



In the east of England there are several rivers 

 that meander peacefully along, with a tow-path 

 for company, fringed with rows of pollarded 

 willows, and passing now and then by large osier 

 beds and clumps of tall, waving reeds. The 

 willows form a small avian paradise, for even the 

 most critical Treecreeper can have no difficulty in 

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