Winter Visitors. 147 



trees a little troop of siskins fly up from the alder- 

 seeds that lie scattered on the ground, with strange 

 metallic notes, and alight among the trees farther 

 down the stream. 



Give them a few minutes to settle down again, and 

 then steal along in the shelter of the old willow, whose 

 rifted trunk leans over the water. There they are, the 

 whole tribe of them, busy among the catkins, clinging 

 in ever-changfng graceful attitudes to the brown 

 clusters that hang among the swaying boughs. 



It is well for them that they have found a sanctuary 

 like this. Too often, alas ! our feathered visitors meet 

 their death within our borders. We show no favour 

 to the oriole ; we give no shelter to the waxwing. 



And as long as there are those who think that the 

 possession of the stuffed and mounted skin is more to 

 be desired than the delight of watching the living bird 

 in the enjoyment of its freedom, and write with pride 

 to the papers of their ' success in bagging ' a whole 

 flock of rare visitors, there is small hope that the 

 bustard will once more run free on Salisbury Plain, of 

 that the crane will come back to his long-deserted 

 haunt among the fens. 



To the true lover of Nature the pleasure lies, 

 not in promptly slaying each new and too trustful 

 feathered stranger, but in watching the manners and 

 customs of the children of the air. 



He is willing to lie quiet in the shelter of some 

 friendly screen of leafage, while the wary coal-tit carries 



