Quite a few animals of the Smokies depend on streams and their organisms without living entirely in them. They live with one foot in the water and one foot on land, as it were. Raccoons out hunting at night patrol streams, alert for frogs, crayfish, and mussels. Mink pursue fish, crayfish, and other animals underwater, flowing downstream through the foam as effortlessly as water itself. Kingfishers perch on overhanging branches to plunge headfirst after small fish. Their loud, rattling calls can be heard on the lower courses of many streams. The small Louisiana waterthrush, a warbler, teeters on rocks in the torrent, searching for aquatic insects. It nests on stream banks or behind waterfalls. Its song, a lovely descending jumble of notes, cascades like the water of its haunts. Harmless water snakes, mottled brown somewhat like the water moccasin (which does not occur in the Smokies), like to sun on limbs or debris near the water. Frogs, fish, salamanders, and crayfish form most of their diet. Of the park’s few species of frogs, the green frog is the one most likely to be found in streams. Aquatic turtles are even less common; most numerous is the snapping turtle, a wanderer that sometimes reaches the middle elevations in the park. Ducks, herons, and other large aquatic birds, scarce in the park because there are no large bodies of water, do appear occasionally. On the section of Abrams Creek that flows through Cades Cove you may surprise a wood duck or green heron. Though not very productive of plant food, Fontana Lake on the south border of the park sometimes serves as a resting place for migrating waterfowl. Perhaps we humans could be considered semi-aquatic ourselves, so strongly does water attract us. In the Smokies people love to visit waterfalls, plunge into favorite swimming holes, play among the rocks and white water, and fish up and down the streams. One of my favorite activities is simple stream-watching. Just pick a sunny rock, sit down with your lunch, and watch. That’s all there is to it. Trout will eventually grow bold enough to come out of hiding. Birds fly out of the dense forest to feed in the sunlit shrubs along the stream. Butterflies wander down this open avenue, and dragonflies dart after winged prey. Sometimes the unusual happens. One fine October day as I was just finishing my sandwich, a little red squirrel appeared on the opposite shore, edged down a rock to the water, and plunged in. It drifted with the current and then scrambled out on a rock near me. A swimming squirrel I had never expected to see. In the Smokies you are seldom far from the sound of water. These tumbling streams—the Little Pigeon, the Oconaluftee, Roaring Fork, Hazel Creek, and all their many brothers—have voices as various as a hound dog’s. They talk, murmur, shout, and sing, rising and falling in tone. Porters Creek once actually convinced me that people were talking and playing guitars on its bank. This is the soul music of the mountains.