A Morning in Winter.



169



Whiskey Jack. When you have been sitting since early morning

behind four fast reindeer, skirting the thin edge of the pine trees,

and the cold is great, and about half-way up your tibia razors

seem to be sawing at the bone, and you pull the team round in a

half-circle, unless you can frame the proper throaty word for

“ wma ! ”—the writer never could—and tumble off the sleigh into the

snow to find you cannot stand, then indeed Jack Moujik’s voice

sounds friendly as he draws up through the trees, and you have cause

to bless him, call him by what name you please. By the time the

brick tea is steaming in the billy the relations established are already

of the friendliest and he is ready to share your hard-baked slabs of

bread.


I do not remember to have seen a Whiskey Jack in captivity,

it would he a most engaging pet. Mr. Meade-Waldo has however

described for us his delightful Siberian jay ; though it is not every

bird-keeper who has the devotion needed to provide so varied a bill

of fare as he describes.



A MORNING IN WINTER.


By Hubert D. Astley.


The end of February, Primulas in full colour, pear blossom

almost opening, daffodils budding, and the Pyrus japonica in scarlet

bloom, so mild has the winter been. Yet the winds and the gales,

positive hurricanes, seem to have been blowing without cessation

for two full months. And now the clerk of the weather has a bad

bilious attack, shewing his tongue unhealthily yellow ! A N.E. gale,

and then the snow whirling and scurrying, thawing a bit on the

ground, but oh how cold it must he up above in aeroplane altitudes !

The first look from bedroom windows is horrible, disheartening,

depressing! the more so because of one’s birds, and the wild birds

too, for they must be fed. Once out of doors one is too busy to

think of anything else. A bowl of hot melox in hand, I hurry

round about the house, scattering some here and there in sheltered

corners, or where the snow has been swept away on paved paths.

Eobins, starlings, thrushes and blackbirds are lopping about, puffed

out, and then come blue tits, a solitary pied wagtail in spring colours,

one or two hedge accentors, a couple of great tits, and of course



