alling short, swam the remainder without apparent
trouble, and escaped into a hole on the opposite shore with his wet
fur laid close to the body. But they usually cross at the bridge,
where the ground bears the marks of their incessant nightly travels to
and fro.

Passing now in the other direction, up the stream from the bridge, the
hedges after a while cease, and the brook winds through the open
fields. Here there is a pond, to which at night the heron resorts; for
he does not care to trust himself between the high hedgerows. In the
still shallow, but beyond reach, there floats on the surface a small
patch of green vegetation formed of the treble leaves of the water
crow-foot. Towards June it will be a brilliant white spot. The slender
stems uphold the cup-like flowers two or three inches above the
surface, the petals of the purest white with a golden centre. They are
the silver buttercups of the brook. Where the current flows slowly the
long and somewhat spear-shaped leaves of the water-plantain stand up,
and in the summer will be surmounted by a tall stalk with three small
pale pink petals on its branches. The leaf can be written on with a
pencil, the point tracing letters by removing the green colouring
where it passes.

Far larger are the leaves of the water-docks; they sometimes attain to
immense size. By the bank the 'wild willow,' or water-betony, with its
woody stem, willow-shaped leaves, and pale red flowers, grows thickly.
Across where there is a mud-bank the stout stems of the willow herb
are already tall. They quite cover the shoal, and line the brook like
shrubs. They are the strongest and the most prominent of all the brook
plants. At the end of March or beginning of April the stalks appear a
few inches high, and they gradually increase in size, until in July
they reach above the waist, and form a thicket by the shore. Not till
July does the flower open, so that, though they make so much show of
foliage, it is months before any colour brightens it. The red flower
comes at the end of a pod, and has a tiny white cross within it; it is
welcome, because by August so many of the earlier flowers are fading.
The country folk call it the sod-apple, and say the leaves crushed in
the fingers have something of the scent of apple-pie.

Farther up the stream, where a hawthorn bush shelters it, stands a
knotted fig-wort with a square stem and many branches, each with small
velvety flowers. If handled, the leaves em