A Bittern. 243 
and shallow the other deeper and stronger, has scooped 
out a basin. A waving line upon the surface marks 
where the two streams shoulder each other and strive 
for mastery, and its curve, yielding now to this side 
now to that, responds to their varying volume and 
weight. While the under-currents sweep ever slowly 
round, whirling leaf and dead black soddened twigs 
over the hollow, the upper streams are forced together 
unwillingly by the narrowing shores, and throw them- 
selves with a bubbling rush onwards. Through the 
brown water, from under the stooping willow whose 
age bows it feebly, there shine now and again silvery 
streaks deep down as the roach play to and fro. 
There, too, come the perch; they are waiting for the 
insects fallirg off the willows and the bushes, and for 
the food brought down by the streams. 
‘Hush!’ it is the rustle of the reeds, their heads 
are swaying—a reddish brown now, later on in the 
vear a delicate feathery white. Seen from beneath. 
their slender tips, as they gracefully sweep to and fro, 
seem to trace designs upon the blue dome of the sky. 
A whispering in the reeds and tall grasses: a faint 
murmuring of the waters: yonder, across the broad 
water-meadow, a yellow haze hiding the elms. 
In the nooks and corners on the left side of the 
mead the hemlock rears its sickly-looking stem; the 
mound is broad and high, and thickly covered with 
grasses, for the most part dead and dry. These form 
a warm cover for the fox: there is usually one hiding 
R2 
