250 FISHING GOSSIP. 
“Chichester is watered by the river Lavaut, . 
whose course is entirely unaccountable, being some- 
times quite dry, and at other times runs with a violent 
stream even in the middle of summer.” 
But this eccentricity of behaviour is attributed to 
many rivers—as in the case of the Lambourne, 
for instance, a tributary of the Kennet, which has 
been handed down, even to the present day, as being 
a stream “almost dry in winter and most full in 
summers of great drought.” We are accustomed to 
judge for ourselves where it is possible in such cases, 
and regret to have to dispel the poetry of history, by 
stating that after carefully watching this and other 
Tivers for a series of years, we have not been able to 
detect the slightest evidence in favour of the fact in 
any one instance. 
Then we come to waters which, like the hero of 
Thackeray’s Revolution ballad, seem to fulfil only one, 
and that a somewhat abnormal purpose in life—viz. 
drumming ; thus— 
“Oundle, on the river Nyne, in Northampton- 
shire, is noted for its drumming well, generally 
thought to foretell war, or the death of some eminent 
person, as appears by a late printed account of this 
prodigy.” Taking, we presume, a hint: from the boy 
who cut open the drum to see where the sound came 
from ;—* It has been once emptied to find out the 
cause of the noise ; but the man that went down to 
