30 DOWN THE BECK 



the light in the shivering breezes, instead of sad- 

 ness, they speak of joy to the angler, for it is just 

 when these capfuls of wind blow that the lazy 

 trout in the holes under their shade rise eagerly at 

 the fly. Once every year, in the city church of 

 St James, in accordance with a benefactor's will, a 

 sermon on flowers is preached from some floral 

 text, to a congregation mainly composed of young 

 people, each of them careful to carry a nosegay 

 with them to the service. A walk down the beck, 

 to one who knows anything of botany, or, better 

 still, who really loves our wild flowers, is in itself 

 a perpetual sermon. And how much are its exhor- 

 tations strengthened if the angler be somewhat of 

 an ornithologist ! What a joyous melody proceeds 

 from the ivy- covered fir, as Will Wimble # makes 

 his way to the beck ! 



" That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over, 

 Lest you should think he never can recapture 

 The first fine careless rapture." 



On this sunny bank, in the first gleam of 

 spring sunshine, may be noticed a sprightly little 

 bird hopping along, glad to have completed his 

 migration to our shores — the wheatear, which 

 Tennyson aptly terms (if we read him aright) " the 



* "He makes a May-fly to a miracle, and furnishes the whole 

 country with angle-rods." — Spectator, No. 108. 



