96 A SPRING HERESY 



forced upon the attention at a time of continual fog, 

 and even the added sting of persistent frost fails to 

 drive in some species to the neighbourhood of houses. 



The vigorously rattled note of a Common Wren 

 drew me where the bird was worming its way through 

 the frost-laden hedge, scattering the dense white 

 powder when it perched or fluttered from twig to 

 twig. Who that has watched a Wren but knows 

 the quick, straight look with which it ceases for a 

 moment from its search to observe the observer? 

 There is in it more of surprise than of suspicion. 

 "Well, what is it?" he seems to inquire, like one 

 disturbed in more serious occupation, his small body 

 bent forward on his perch and head depressed as he 

 fixes you with sidelong glance. " What do you want? 

 Thought you were going on. Cold ? Of course, 

 it's cold. Spring is it? No, sir; no grubs, no 

 spring. 'Tr.r.r.r.rT " and the intensely practical little 

 wretch drops in a small artic blizzard of frost dust 

 into the hedge packing, where we leave him torturing 

 dead leaves to disclose lethargic larvae waiting for 

 the mythic spring. He is always here, wandering up 

 and down this strip of hedge the Hawthorn Lane 

 Wren. 



If asked how we know, we can only answer that 

 " we know." For we, too, have a restricted beat, an 

 inner circle in our wanderings, as it were, wherein 

 we revolve so frequently and regularly that we come 

 to know our own birds individually, so as to recognise 

 their presence or absence as one might the presence or 

 absence of human associates in the daily round of life. 



Within that continental system of geography that 

 defines localities as farms, roads, lanes, rivers, brooks, 



