BIRDS liV A VILLAGE. 
27 
thing in nature which, to my mind, gains in beauty 
by the mutilation, so admirably does it fit into and 
harmonize with the landscape. At one point there 
was a deep, nearly stagnant pool, separated from 
the stream by a strip of wet rushy ground, its still 
dark surface covered with water-lilies, not yet in 
bloom. They were just beginning to show their 
polished buds, shaped like snake's heads, above the 
broad oily leaves floating like islands on the surface. 
The stream itself was (on my side) fringed with 
bulrushes and other aquatic plants ; on the opposite 
bank there were some large alders lifting their 
branches above great masses of bramble and rose- 
briar, all together forming as rich and beautiful a 
tangle as one could find even in the most luxuriant 
of the wild unkept hedges round the village. The 
briars especially flourished wonderfully at this spot, 
climbing high and dropping their long slim branches 
quite down to the surface of the water, and in some 
places forming an arch above the stream. A short 
distance from this tangle, so abundantly sprinkled 
with its pale delicate roses, the water was spanned 
by a small wooden bridge, which no person appeared 
to use, but which had a use. It formed the one dry 
clear spot in the midst of all that moist vegetatioa, 
and the birds that came from the wood to drink 
and search for worms and small caterpillars first 
alighted on the bridge. There they would rest a 
