102 A SPRING HERESY 



kept together when disturbed, continuing thus from 

 the 2Oth August until the ist September, after which 

 the old female remained alone throughout the winter. 



Proceeding further along the river, I found that 

 Blackbird and Throstle had been forced from the 

 frozen fields to seek sustenance by the flowing 

 water ; and the " Trit ! " of a Yellowhammer and 

 churring of a Blue-tit showed these birds also to be 

 feeding in a strange place. In fact, the Mersey, 

 during the prolonged frost, had become a sort of 

 river of life to a motley assemblage of birds, 

 ranging from the Kestrel to the Blue-tit, that had 

 had the good fortune to find their way to its banks. 

 Although " /zW/ "-ing out cheerily from time to 

 time, a company of a score of Chaffinches remained, 

 as if blanketed down, in a spot where they appeared 

 first at the middle of December, and where, through 

 fog and clear, frost and thaw, they continued until 

 the third week of January. 



A canvass by the river would, I fear, have found 

 few among the feathered tribes ready at that time to 

 recognise the advent of spring. Yet, I was wiser in 

 my generation than I knew. For, about eleven 

 o'clock in the forenoon of the eve of Christmas, a 

 light air from the south-east began to feel its way 

 through the fog, and in less than an hour the week- 

 old pall was lifted entirely from the land. 



What a scene it disclosed ! For a short time the 

 bright mid-day sun looked along a landscape white as 

 far as eye could see white in the plains, white where 

 the distant hills stood forward, as it were, with a 

 strange show of nearness. By long accretion of frost- 

 crystals each blade of grass in the fields had gathered 



