280 THE RING OF NATURE 



Leaving some other finches unnamed, who can 

 forget their near ally the bunting, that is to say, 

 the yellow one, our gorgeous yellow-hammer. 

 Two of them sit upon the hedge watching one 

 another so closely that I get within a very few 

 yards before they fly away. Yellower than 

 canaries all down the front from crown to the root 

 of the tail, with back and wings of ruddy brown, 

 and tail that shows wide white feathers when it 

 is spread in flight. Easy to say how yellow, 

 but impossible to give an idea of how lavishly, 

 healthily splendid, this cold December day. 



The warblers cannot be gay except in daintiness 

 of shape, but one of them, a good deal more gay 

 than the rest, is the only one that stays the winter 

 our very well loved hedge-sparrow, which we 

 will not call, as we should, hedge-accentor. Here- 

 abouts they call it blue Isaac, a startling name to 

 the thousands who declare it at sight to be a mere 

 brown bird. But its neck and throat blush and 

 sparkle with a blue iridescence like that which 

 gleams in spring upon ' the burnished dove.' 

 Like most other birds, it anticipates spring with 

 much of its finery, and it now pours out from 

 the summit of a blackberry bush a silvery tin- 

 tinnabulation of song that seems to make the 

 sun shine. 



There is a tinkling like little bits of ice jostling 

 in a stream, and from the larch wood to a beech 

 out in the field flies a long-tailed tit. Then another 

 and another, till the air seems full of them, each 



