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Peacock : The Beck — A Study. 



Flashing- brightly in the summer sun, where it ripples over 

 its pebbly bed or round the stepping- stones of the cattle ford, 

 or lying in the afternoon haze like a burnished mirror of silver 

 in its quiet pools, broken ever and anon into rhythmical dimples 

 by a rising dace or tiny minnow, or rushing wildly along, bank 

 full, as we say locally, with a swollen torrent that the strongest 

 swimmer would not care to face, flooding the lowlands all along 

 its course, or gurgling hoarsely under an iron canopy of ice, 

 that grips everything but its narrowest and most broken shallows, 

 as in the 59 days' frost of the winter of 1890-91, the beck runs on 

 eternally to find its last home in the river, a perpetual study for 

 a man of observation. 



Beautiful at all seasons of the year, the beck is most 

 delicately lovely, perhaps, on a bright and sunny winter morning, 

 when a rime-frost has coated with a filigree of fairy tracery 

 every branch and tangled spray, straggling grass and decaying 

 sedge. In such a dress, as we say locally, the beck can claim 

 the notice and sometimes the close attention of the casual passer 

 by, for even the dullest intelligence cannot but mark the contrast 

 between the dark grey rushing waters and their brilliant frost 

 setting. Xo wonder our streams with their winding nooks, 

 shaded with hawthorn, willow and ash, alternating w 7 ith clear 

 and open reaches, as straight as nature's rule can make them, 

 have appealed to poets and painters alike irresistibly; no wonder 

 they have softened into contemplative gentleness the untiring 

 anglers, who know them better than anyone else. 



Life, for some not fully explained reason, is more frequent 

 and joyous along the beck's banks than anywhere on the fields 

 and uplands above. The heron, kingfisher, mallard and vole 

 are its own natural children, but why the hare, brown rat, 

 weasel and woodpecker, as well as most of our common birds, 

 are to be found making their homes and nesting in hedge and 

 tree, or in the rank herbage and dead-thorn cattle fences along 

 its course, requires some further explanation. A steady watch, 

 however, kept through a long summer's day, at one end of 

 a reach, especially if the water lies along the side of a grass 

 field skirted by a wood, will explain much — more perhaps than 

 anyone but a born naturalist would have the instinct or patience 

 to observe. Days and weeks of careful watching, from the first 

 peep of dawn till night shrouds everything in darkness, are 

 hardly enough to satisfy the true student of nature, as many 

 problems must be left unsolved. Week in week out, the observer 

 must be up before the dawn of day till noon, or from midday to 



Naturalist, 



