The ditches as they open on the brook are the favourite resorts of all aquatic life, and there most of the insects, beetles, etc, that live in the water may be discovered. They form, too, one of the last resorts of the reeds; these beautiful plants have been much diminished in quantity by the progress of agriculture. One or two great mounds by the brook can show a small bed still, and here and there a group grows at the mouth of these deep ditches, on the little delta formed of the sand, mud, and decaying twigs brought down. I have cut them fifteen feet in length. Some people, attracted by the beauty of the feathery heads of these reeds, come a considerable distance to get them. I have made pens of them: it is possible to write with such pens, and they are softer than quills, but on account of that softness quickly wear out. A woodcock may occasionally be flushed from such a ditch in winter. Woodcocks are fond of those ditches down which there always trickles a tiny thread of water--hardly so much as would be understood by the term streamlet--coming from a little spring which even in severe frosts is never frozen. Ever when the running brook is frozen such little spring: are free of ice, and so, too, is the streamlet for some distance. From the bed of the brook proper the reeds are gone--they have taken refuge in nooks and corners. This is probably accounted for by the periodical cleaning out of the brook--not annually, but every now and then, in order to prevent the flooding which would be caused by the accumulation of mud and sand. The roots of the flags seem to withstand this rod: treatment; but many other water plants cannot, and are consequently only found in places which have not been disturbed for many years. There is as much difference in ponds as in hedges, so far as inhabitants are concerned. Many fields and hedges seem comparatively deserted, while others are full of birds; and so of several ponds which do not apparently vary much--one is a favourite haunt of fish, and another has not got a single fish in it. One pond particularly used to attract my attention, because it seemed devoid of any kind of life: not even a stickleback could be found in it, though they will live in the smallest ditches, and this pond was fed by a brook in which there were fish. Not even a newt lived in it--it was a miniature Dead Sea. Another pond was remarkable for innumerable water-snails. When the wind blew hard they sometimes lined the lee shore to which they had drifted.