WINTER SHIFTS. 265 



sustenance during December, January, and Febru- 

 ary, I have placed myself as far as possible, body 

 and mind, in the position of a famished bird, and 

 gone forth on a bleak winter's day into the woods 

 to search for food. On my hands and knees in 

 a copse composed of oak, wild cherry, beech, and 

 hazel, I have carefully turned over the leaves 

 one by one right down to the bare dank mould 

 below. Two square yards of clearing and eager 

 scrutiny yielded one small worm, one acorn, one 

 sound hazel nut, and a tiny snail. A second 

 search in a different part of the same wood only 

 furnished a single half-torpid worm to the two 

 square yards. A fortnight later I cleared six 

 square yards in the same carefully methodical 

 fashion for the finding of a single beggarly hazel 

 nut of the smallest dimensions. 



Of course, some allowance must be made for 

 the difference between the eye sharpness of a 

 hungry bird and that of the most carefully trained 

 human observer ; but even then the result of 

 the last-named search, side by side with a know- 

 ledge of the enormous appetite of, say, a robin 

 redbreast, makes one wonder at the large measure 

 of a wild bird's hope and admire its marvellous 

 perseverance. 



Of course, when the majority of streams and 

 sheets of fresh water are frozen over, and the 

 earth lies wrapped in a thick blanket of undrifted 



