6 THE RING OF NATURE 



The birds that stay the winter with us are also 

 saved from the necessity of hibernation by their 

 wings. Any one of them can cover a far larger 

 space of earth in its quest for food than a mere 

 wingless animal. In a few minutes a flock of star- 

 lings can sweep over several parishes, and dropping 

 here and there find some field on the sternest day 

 of frost capable of yielding grubs. The shrews, 

 eating much the same food, dare not even appear 

 for a moment in the middle of a bare field for fear 

 of the birds of prey. So the shrews are safely 

 tucked away in some dry hedgebank, from which, 

 however, they stir occasionally even in the coldest 

 months to find food for their hot-blooded needs. 

 You would think that if any animals had to sleep 

 in the winter it would be those that eat insects. 

 We have, however, a still more wonderful contra- 

 diction of such a reasonable expectation to show. 



To-day when the sun was doing his watery best 

 to shine on the bare and apparently dead branches 

 of the apple trees, a little black smudge went 

 flittering across his mild disk, and in and out across 

 the steely, barren sky. I should think that if I 

 could take a muslin bag as wide and as long as the 

 twenty-acre field, and sweep with it the whole 

 country of the Hunt, I should not catch enough 

 winter gnats or other rare riff-raff of the sky to 

 furnish a nuncheon for a single bat. Never was 

 the extravagance of winter wakefulness so clearly 

 shown as in this January midday flittering of our 

 little pipistrelle. What an appetite he is certain 



