d vigorous in their growth, and produce a most luxuriant foliage; the
ground itself, however, is generally dry under foot, and in some places
rocky.

It is therefore very rare, quite an exceptional case, to find on the
elevated heaths, or in our forests, any lakes or large pieces of water;
nevertheless they are to be seen here and there, and then the cottage of
the peasant, or the hut of the wood-*cutter is sure to raise its modest
head on their banks; in time these humble edifices are augmented in
number till they sometimes become a considerable village. If the spring,
once a silvery thread, and now a brawling rivulet, changes its character
to a deep and considerable stream, farm-houses, a chateau, or a
hunting-box are soon erected near it. If it is merely a tiny source
rising from the earth, or springing from some isolated rock, and soon
lost in the moss, without even a murmur, calm and silent, as the life of
the lowly peasant, which is slowly consumed in the scarcely varying path
of labour,--then no one takes the least notice of it.

Sometimes, however, the tears which the earth thus sheds, this crystal
thread, scorned by the unobserving passer-by, is arrested in its timid
course by some trifling obstacle--a rising path, a fallen branch or
tree. This little streamlet swells, frets the immediate spot of ground,
imperceptibly increases in size, and becomes after many efforts, the
patient work of months and years, something like the basin of a large
_jet d'eau_, a liquid cup lost in the recesses of the woods, reflecting
only a very small portion of the blue heavens above; unknown to man, but
always frequented by thousands of delighted and happy insects, and
little birds that come there in the great heats of summer to refresh
themselves, to skim across the surface, and sip, with head uplifted
towards heaven, its pellucid waters. These little springs, lost in the
thickness of the mossy turf and the dead leaves, like a gray hair in
the dark tresses of some village beauty, which accident or a lover could
alone discover, when thus interrupted and formed into a bowl of water,
such as I have described, is called a _Mare_.

If, therefore, the sportsman in traversing the depths of the forest
should chance to discover one of these mirrors of the passing butterfly,
of the flower which inclines its slender form towards it, or of the bird
that sings and plays in the branches that overspread its surface, he
must not look contemptuo