348 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



We may still hear the tinkling- of the bearded tits, which 

 find it no great task to shake the snow dust from the reed 

 tufts in order to lay bare for their profit the ripe seed-heads. 



At these times bird and beast are put to great shifts for a 

 bare living. Out there by the edge of a pine clump is a 

 gaunt heron watching hard by a water-vole's burrow ; if the 

 vole but show itself the bird's stiletto of a bill will pierce its 

 skull as by a lightning stroke. Let the frost ' give ' but 

 an hour or two, crows will be seen inspecting the freshly 

 cast mole-heaps showing black above the snow. A batch of 



WILD SWANS 



a few heavier feathers — the rest have been scattered by 

 the wind — and a red tinge of blood on the snow is all 

 that is left of a little tragedy of the earlier morning. A 

 parcel of hooded crows had found a wounded pochard lying 

 against this grassy tussock. It had escaped the aim of the 

 fowler to fall into the tender mercies of the crows. There 

 may have been two, or even four or five at work ; anyway, 

 they did their work quickly and well, for only the breastbone, 

 brought to view by a thrust of the foot against the snow, 

 remains of it. Probably the head and other parts were 

 snatched up by these ghouls to be discussed elsewhere. 



One may now often drop across the remains of a big 

 bream, or a jack, or even the relics of a coot, the debris 



