282 THE RING OF NATURE 



every inch for seeds of charlock, dock, and other 

 hardy weeds that would soon overrun the world. 

 Every day the tits and others are searching every 

 niche in the smooth, clean limbs of the leafless 

 trees. But to-morrow, by some chance of growth or 

 warmth or frost, something else will be revealed 

 on the station that is clean picked to-day. The 

 next grub on the list of death will choose to turn 

 in its earthen chamber or the movement of a leaf 

 or clod will give up the secret of a seed that had 

 hoped to become a tall mustard tree. 



There is no better example of the hopper than 

 the old cones on the alders. Not a day passes 

 but some school of tits or siskins overrun the trees, 

 seeming to inspect every crack between the scales 

 of the cones, yet obviously finding something 

 every day that on another day had been overlooked. 

 An expansion of one two-hundredth part of an 

 inch no doubt will make the difference between 

 inaccessibility and accessibility to some morsel. 



On some trees, such as the hawthorn, there are a 

 good many dead leaves still clinging to the branches, 

 some of them lasting till the putting forth of new 

 leaves. Very often the secret of their adherence 

 is the spinning up there of some caterpillar, which 

 remains there in chrysalid shape till the time of 

 moths comes again. One day a lucky tit passing 

 that way may catch a glimpse of something large 

 and round, a feast to stay his appetite for a good 

 ten minutes. 



Every morning this week there has been a blue 



