LIFE BY THE RIVER 13 1 



Several pieces of evidence suggested that the bat had 

 been knocked from his perch by a bird. The tree, like 

 the river beneath it, is always singularly populous. They 

 say of the sycamore that it boasts a bigger surface of leaf 

 than any other tree. The leaves are very wide, and, being 

 in alternate pairs like the hands of a weather-cock, can 

 grow close and yet allow each to catch the light. It is 

 singularly dark at the centre of a big sycamore ; and this 

 one has a great growth of ivy to add to its darkness. 

 When it flowered the sound of bees in the branches was 

 as loud as any lime s continuous murmur. Later came a 

 rain of falling blossom, and in autumn fruitful seeds will 

 spin down in myriads. Pigeons nest up aloft, a wren in 

 the ivy on the trunk, and unnumbered sparrows keep 

 their untidy flats in the dustiest part of the ivy. It is 

 rarely that some cock chaffinch is not singing from an 

 outer branch. Probably, also, it is full of bats. At any 

 rate, there is no place known to me where so many 

 pipistrelles join to hawk gnats on a summer evening. 



One bough of this sycamore stretches all the way across 

 the stream. You could cross by it, if need were, for it 

 is low. The lowness of that bough appears to be a most 

 important fact in the lives of several sorts of creature. 

 When the falling bat disturbed us, we were looking at a 

 shoal of dace, some of them bigger than dace usually are. 

 They take the fly like any trout, when the mood is on 

 them, though at others they resort to nibbling, and will 

 swallow nothing on impulse. Nowhere else do they rise 

 as under or nearly under this sycamore bough. In the 

 evening little circles break on the surface almost con 

 tinuously ; and you might think something was falling 

 from the tree, if it were not that a small fish frequently 

 comes out clear of the water ; and if you can manage the 

 light and its reflection, you may see the very fish. The 



