Others, again, who are of a geographical turn of mind, can only see in a
brook a necessary portion of the water-shed of the district.

To children it is for a time dear as a playground, possessing the
inestimable advantage of enabling them to fall into it and wet their
clothes from head to foot.

Then there are some who are keenly alive to its changing beauties, and
are gifted with artistic spirit and power of appreciation, even if they
should not have been able to cultivate the technical skill which would
enable them to transfer to paper or canvas the scene which pleased them.
Yet they can only see the surface, and take little, if any, heed of the
wealth of animated life with which the brook and its banks are peopled,
or of the sounds with which the air is filled.

Happy are those in whom are fortunately combined the appreciation of art
and the gift (for it is a gift as much as an eye for art or an ear for
music) of observing animal life. To them the brook is all that it is to
others, and much besides. To them the tiniest brook is a perpetual joy,
and of such a nature I hope are those who read these pages.

Not only does a brook assume different aspects, according to the
individuality of the spectator, but every brook has its individuality,
and so have its banks.

Often the brook "plays many parts," as in Burns' delightful stanza,
which seems to have rippled from the poet's brain as spontaneously as
its subject.

Sometimes, however, as near Oxford, it flows silently onwards with
scarcely a dimple on its unruffled surface. Over its still waters the
gnats rise and fall in their ceaseless dance. The swift-winged
dragon-flies, blue, green, and red, swoop upon them like so many falcons
on their prey; or, in the earlier year, the mayflies flutter above the
stream, leaving their shed skins, like ghostly images of themselves,
sticking on every tree trunk near the brook.

On the surface of the brook are seen the shadow-like water-gnats,
drifting with apparent aimlessness over the surface, but having in view
a definite and deadly purpose, as many a half drowned insect will find
to its cost.

Under the shade of the willows that overhang its banks the whirligig
beetles will gather, sociably circling round and round in their mazy
dance, bumping against each other in their swift course, but glancing
off unhurt from the collision, protected from injury by the stout coats
of mail which they wear.

They really look like uns