The moorhens come down the current slowly, searching about among the flags; the reed warblers are busy in the hedge; at the mouth of his hole sits a water-rat rubbing his face between his paws; across the stream comes his mate, swimming slowly with one end of a long green sedge in her mouth, and the rest towed behind on the surface. They are the beavers of our streams--amusing, intelligent little creatures, utterly different in habits from the rat of the drain. Move but a hand, and instantly they fall rather than dive into the water, making a sound like `thock' as they strike it; and then they run along the bottom, or seem to do so, as swiftly as on dry land. But in a few minutes out they come again, being at the same time extremely timid and as quickly reassured; so that if you remain perfectly still they will approach within a yard. Where the two brooks meet a hollow willow tree hangs over the brown pool--brown with suspended sand and dead leaves slowly rotating under the surface--where the swirl of the meeting currents, one swift 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 themselves 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 falling 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 year 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 somewhere here, the mead being so quiet. Where the ground is often flooded watercress has spread out into the grass, growing so profusely that now the water is low it might be mown by the scythe. And everywhere in their season, the beautiful forget-me-nots nestle on the shores among the flags, where the water, running slower at the edge, lingers to kiss their feet.