wever, the tenant had wisely planted the ground
with withies, which he managed to get at for lopping when its turn
came round every seven years. Thus we have an example of the necessity
of the ancient practice of beating the bounds, which, at least before
the days of ordnance surveys, was not merely an opportunity for a
holiday.

Another proof of the creation of new land by the meanderings of a
stream is found in the ancient "carrs" of North Lincolnshire, near
Brigg, where the hollowed-out logs of black bog oak, which formed the
canoes of the ancient inhabitants, are sometimes discovered many feet
below the surface, and long distances from the present course of the
Ancholme. These having sunk to the bottom of the river in past ages,
and gradually become covered with alluvium, were left behind as the
river changed its course. In some cases however these canoes may have
sunk to the bottom of the water when it formed a lake, and the lake
having gradually silted up, the river receded to something like its
present width.

The floods in the Vale of Evesham from the Avon and even from my
brooks, often converted the adjoining flat meadows into lakes, and
they rose so suddenly after heavy rains or the melting of deep
snowfalls on the hills, that they were attended with danger to the
stock.

In the summer of 1879 one of these sudden floods occurred, and people
standing on Evesham bridge, saw fallen trees and hay-cocks floating
down the stream. A pollard willow was noticed with a crew of about
twenty land rats, which had found refuge there until the tree itself
was lifted by the rising water and carried down the stream; and a
floating hay-cock supported a man's jacket, his jar of cider, and his
"shuppick." The local word "shuppick," a corruption of "sheaf-pike,"
means a pike used for loading the sheaves of wheat in the harvest
field on to the waggon, and is the "fork" in general use at
hay-making. During another summer flood the whole of the pleasure
ground at Evesham, beside the Avon, was under water several feet deep;
the water poured in at the lower windows of the adjoining hotel, and
the proprietor's casks of beer and cider in the cellars, ready for the
regatta, were lifted from their stands and bumped against walls and
ceilings.

Every parish has its Council in these days, and in country places
almost every other person one meets is a councillor of some sort, and
inclined to be proud of the distinction. These Councils a