146 MORE POT-POURRI 



December 22nd. After all the fine, mild weather I 

 have been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with 

 hard, cold, moonlight nights. So to-day I thought of 

 my little birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble, 

 instead of hanging the string with cocoanut and suet 

 from a window or a stiff cross-bar, to arrange it in the 

 following way: I cut a big branch, lopping it more or 

 less, and push it through the hole of a French iron 

 garden -table, that I happen to have, which holds an 

 umbrella in summer. On the other side of the house I 

 stick a similar branch into the ground. On these I hang, 

 Christmas-tree fashion, some pieces of suet and a tallow 

 candle the old 'dip' a cocoanut with a hole cut, not at 

 the bottom as I recommended before, but in the side, 

 large enough for the Tom -tits to sit on the edge and 

 peck inside, and yet roofed enough to prevent the rain- 

 water collecting in it. They seem to have remembered 

 the feeding from last year, as they began at the piece of 

 suet at once. On the table below I used to put a basin 

 to hold crumbs and scraps from meals rice, milk, any- 

 thing almost, for the other birds who will not eat either 

 the fat or the cocoanut. But I found this was such a 

 great temptation to the cats and dogs of the establish- 

 ment, who became most extraordinarily acrobatic in the 

 methods by which they got on to the table, that I had to 

 devise wiring the saucer of a flower -pot and so hanging 

 it on to the most extended branch, out of reach of the 

 cleverest of Miss Pussies. If once it freezes very hard, 

 I put out bowls of tepid water. This the birds much 

 appreciate. 



December 23rd. I have been out for a walk long 

 after dark or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon 

 was shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times 

 of year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight. 

 Is it because I have done it so rarely, or because of the 



