314 THE CHANGING SEASONS 



at the prospect of an early end to the long winter. The 

 wind continued west during- the i ith, but the rain turned 

 to snow with intervals of sunshine. A couple of peregrine 

 falcons arrived, to the discomfiture of the snow-buntings. 

 In the afternoon the clouds cleared away, and we had a 

 calm brioht evening. I tried a round in the forest, but 



o o 



the snow was very treacherous after the rain, and I came 

 to grief on my snow-shoes more than once. In a pine- 

 tree not far from our quarters I found a crow's nest 

 containinor one gq-q-. 



On the following day, when I made my usual round 

 in the forest, I found a north-west wind blowing, and 

 although the sun frequently shone, it was very cold. 

 Travelling was easy enough. There was a frozen crust 

 on the snow, hard enough to bear my weight when dis- 

 tributed over a pair of snow-shoes. I met with only one 

 party of birds, but that was a very interesting one. It 

 consisted of a flock of about a dozen tits, far more than I 

 had ever before seen tooether. I shot five of them. To' 

 my great surprise, two of them proved to be northern 

 marsh-tits. I have always looked upon the tits generally 

 as non-migratory birds, but some partial migration must 

 have taken place in this instance. Captain Wiggins, 

 told me that when he left the Kureika in the middle 

 of November the forest swarmed with tits. No doubt 

 many of these birds died during the winter, which pro- 

 bably kills off more birds even in temperate climates 

 than is popularly supposed. Others may have migrated 

 southwards. I do not think it possible that I could have 

 overlooked the marsh-tit thus far. It must either have 

 then just arrived or is extremely rare. 



A five hours' ramble on Sunday with a north-west 

 wind, a leaden sky, and a smart frost produced nothing 

 but a hazel-grouse and a passing glimpse of a rough- 



