-MAY 



number of bats that flit there in the evening gives further 

 symptom of the quantity of insects that assemble under 

 that thick canopy and above the water. 



Yet another animal enjoys both the sycamore and the 

 river, and makes the best use of both worlds. The water 

 has half undermined the tree and left a roof and hanging 

 wall of roots. If you stoop low on the opposite bank and 

 peer under you may see, if the light is good, a small patch 

 of red. It is on the head of a moorhen brooding nine 

 eggs on a nest much better hidden than moorhens nests 

 usually are. The sudden quack or croak of the old birds 

 is one of the most constant sounds thereabouts ; and 

 every bit of exposed mud is marked by the salient pattern 

 of their feet. They abound, though the dabchick is 

 comparatively rare, all along the river; and on that 

 particular reach show a curious preference for the syca 

 more roots as a nesting place. One year they built on 

 the top of a flat sycamore stump, the most obvious site in 

 the neighbourhood. The bird has often been described 

 as essentially furtive, but on occasion it can lapse into the 

 obvious as well as the vulgar sparrow himself. 



4- 



The old-fashioned farm is lamented. A labourer 

 said to me : &quot; These new-fackled farmers sow the field, 

 lock the gate and don t touch it again till harvest; 

 and that only lasts a week.&quot; He vowed that he could 

 tell by the low straw where the wheels of the tractor 

 had been. He condemned the new farming root and 

 branch, as indeed the naturalist may condemn it from 

 another angle. Our iron instruments for farm, garden, 

 golf links, woodland, and the rest may, it is true, be 

 juggernauts and break up homes if not lives. 



