270 WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



and then discovered that they did not arrive 

 because the wind was blowing strongly from their 

 daily resting tarn towards the weed-clad feeding 

 pool near which I was hiding. Wild ducks dis- 

 like flying with a breeze because it disarranges 

 their plumage and renders their flight somewhat 

 unsteady. 



In the absence of acorns, pheasants that are 

 not hand-fed are very glad to make a meal off 

 hazel nuts if they can secure them, and when 

 hard pressed by hunger will even All their crops 

 with such non-nutritive food as the acrid leaves 

 of the common wood spurge and the fronds of 

 the polypody and shield ferns. 



Strong winds either accompanying or following 

 hard upon the heels of a heavy fall of snow are 

 a blessing in disguise to both red grouse and 

 partridges, because they bare ridges and expose 

 food which would otherwise be very difficult to 

 come at. A quiet fall of snow, followed by a 

 partial thaw and supervening frost, on the other 

 hand, brings black disaster. It hermetically seals 

 the food of these birds, and drives them famished 

 into all sorts of strangely unnatural places and 

 actions. 



In 1895 grouse were shot in mistake for 

 wood-pigeons whilst alighting in oak-trees during 

 the dusk of evening miles and niiles away from 

 the nearest moor, and were to be seen even walking 



