urse they had
their disagreements. Newts are by nature fickle and inconstant.

When she was occupied with the cares of a family, and spent her days
and nights in deftly fashioning starwort cradles for her eggs, it
was irritating that he, whose duty it was to frighten the marauding
sticklebacks, should have preferred to rush away into the giddy vortex of
newt society. It was more than irritating when, by way of showing that her
cradles were insecure, he opened six and devoured the contents himself.

She profited by the experience, however, and the next series were
exquisitely finished. The egg was placed in the exact centre of the leaf,
the leaf was folded over, and sealed, tip to base, with all the strength
of her hind feet. Her mouth put the finishing touch.

When she had visited some half-dozen stalks, and left each adorned
throughout its length with a neat series of symmetrical bows, she felt
that her task was done and that she was at liberty to accompany him.
Together they learnt the brook from end to end. Sometimes they walked
along the bottom, stirring to right and left of them a host of low-class
life, slimy leeches, dingy crustaceans of every imaginable kind. Sometimes
they traversed the middle deeps, brushing against the beetles and the
boatmen and the water-snails. Sometimes they sunned themselves on the
surface, snapping idly at the measurers and whirligigs.

It was the flood that parted them. For three days it had rained
unceasingly on the surface of the brook. As they rose to breathe, their
noses were lashed by pigmy waves. Each raindrop made its own widening
eddy, its own pattering sound. Rain on the roof is noisy enough to those
beneath, but rain on the water is deafening.

[Illustration: SOMETIMES THEY SUNNED THEMSELVES ON THE SURFACE.]

In the brook, as I have said, it rained for three days. In one part or
another of the valley it rained for a week. The meadow-land gave its
surplus to the brook, and the brook sought the river for relief. But the
river was already filled to overflowing, so that brook and river met each
other halfway, and the life in each was intermingled.

[Illustration: A ROACH SNAPPED IDLY AT HIM.]

[Illustration: EACH LAMPERN WAS ANCHORED BY ITS SUCKER TO A ROUNDED
PEBBLE.]

Now, between brook-life and river-life there is a great gulf fixed. There
is no sideways in the river. All things that would stay at rest obey the
current. The fishes point their noses against it; the pla