248 BIRD WATCHING 



I select a striking example — the most atrocious 

 weather, a howling wind, and sleet or sleety snow 

 that seems, as it falls, to thaw and freeze upon one's 

 hands, both at the same time. Later it becomes 

 almost a storm, with more snow. It is, indeed, a day 

 terrible to bird and beast in the general, as well as 

 to man, yet, through it all, these tiny little bits of 

 natural feather-work are feeding on the small Feb- 

 ruary buds of some elms that roar in the wind. 

 Wonderful it is to see them blown and swayed about, 

 with the snow-flakes whirling about them, as they 

 hang high up from the extremities of slender twigs, 

 playing their little life-part (as important in the sum 

 of things as Napoleon's) with absolute ease and well- 

 being, whilst one is almost frozen to look at them. 

 One must think of Shakespeare's lines about " the 

 wet shipboy in a night so rude," but what a poor 

 mollycoddle was he by comparison ! Later they will 

 sleep — these robust little feathered Ariels — to the 

 tempest's lullaby, above a world all snow, and with 

 frozen snow the whole way up the trunk of every un- 

 protected tree, on the windward side. Now it is 

 dinner, with appetite and entire comfort " in the cauld 

 blast." 



What insects are in these tiny little new buds, or 

 are there insects in each one? — for these tits browse 

 from one to another and seem equally satisfied with 

 all. Yet it is authoritatively stated that they eat only 

 the insects in buds, and not the buds themselves. In 

 watching birds, however, as in other things, one 

 should be guided by a few simple rules, and one of 

 the most important of these is absolutely to ignore 

 all statements whatever, without the smallest regard 



