young green: in places this fringe of rush and sedge and flag must have
been five or six yards wide, and it extended as far as could be seen up
the brook. No doubt the cattle trod in the edge of the firm ground by
degrees every year to get at the water, and thus widened the marsh. It
was easy to understand now why all the water-fowl, teal and duck,
moorhen and snipe, seemed in winter to make in this direction.

The ducks especially exercised all our ingenuity and quite exhausted our
patience in the effort to get near them in winter. In the large
water-meadows a small flock sometimes remained all day: it was possible
to approach near enough by stalking behind the hedges to see the colour
of the mallards; but they were always out of gunshot. This place must be
full of teal then; as for moorhens, there were signs of them everywhere,
and several feeding in the grass. The thought of the sport to be got
here when the frosty days came was enough to make one wild.

After a long look across, I began to examine the stream near at hand:
the rushes and flags had forced the clear sweet current away from the
meadow, so that it ran just under the bank. I was making out the brown
sticks at the bottom, when there was a slight splash--caused by Orion
about ten yards farther up--and almost at the same instant something
shot down the brook towards me. He had doubtless landed a jack, and its
fellow rushed away. Under a large dead bough that had fallen across its
top in the stream I saw the long slender fish lying a few feet from the
bank, motionless save for the gentle curving wave of the tail edges. So
faint was that waving curl that it seemed caused rather by the flow of
the current than the volition of the fish. The wings of the swallow
work the whole of the longest summer day, but the fins of the fish in
running water are never still: day and night they move continuously.