The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355,
October 16, 1886, by Various

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Title: The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886

Author: Various

Editor: Charles Peters
Flora Klickmann

Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #18414]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE GIRL'S OWN PAPER

VOL. VIII.--NO. 355.

OCTOBER 16, 1886.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

THE BROOK AND ITS BANKS.

BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A., Author of "The Handy Natural History."

"Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As through the glen it dimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
Whyles in a weil it dimpl't;
Whyles glittered to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes
Below the spreading hazel."

_Burns: "Halloween."_

[Illustration: THE BROOK AND ITS BANKS.]

CHAPTER I.

The many aspects of a brook--The eye sees only that which it is capable
of seeing--Individuality of brooks and their banks--The rippling
"burnie" of the hills--The gently-flowing brooks of low-lying
districts--Individualities even of such brooks--The fresh-water brooks
of Oxford and the tidal brooks of the Kentish marshes--The swarming life
in which they abound--An afternoon's walk--Ditches versus hedges and
walls--A brook in Cannock Chase--Its sudden changes of aspect--The
brooks of the Wiltshire Downs and of Derbyshire.

A brook has many points of view.

In the first place, scarcely any two spectators see it in the same
light.

To the rustic it is seldom more than a convenient water-tank, or, at
most, as affording some sport to boys in fishing. To its picturesque
beauties his eyes are blind, and to him the brook is, like Peter Bell's
primrose, a brook and nothing more.

Then there are some who only view a brook as affording variety to the
pursuit of the fox, and who pride themselves on their knowledge of the
spots at which it can be most successfully leaped.