WINTER SKETCHES 



THE huntsman is quick to heed the voice of the jay, 

 which so often betrays the slipping away of 

 Reynard's his fox; the gamekeeper, too, appreciates 

 Betrayers the jay as a spy on the fox, as on poachers 

 and trespassers ; he is not one to screech for 

 nothing. The crafty cock pheasant, the ever-vigilant 

 little owl, and the wren, with his watchman's rattle, are 

 all quick to raise the alarm when a red shadow fleets 

 across a woodland ride. And the carrion crow, a scarce 

 bird to-day, has often been known to follow closely the 

 movements of a fox when hounds have forced him into 

 the open. 



FIFTY years ago the crow was a common bird of our 

 woodlands, but it fell on evil days, and 

 Miniature naturalists would often lament that this 

 Ravens raven in miniature was following the raven 

 into a list of vanished fauna. One instinct 

 was strongly against its chance of surviving shots from 

 farmers' and gamekeepers' guns, its persistence in re- 

 turning, March after March, to places where its ances- 

 tors nested through centuries. Better times have come 

 for crows, and they are doing much of their own 

 wisdom to save themselves by adopting the life of town 

 birds, some even nesting in Hyde Park. 



TANGLED clusters of twigs on birch-trees, called witches' 



brooms, are commonly mistaken for crows'- 



Witches' nests. In olden days it was naturally sup- 



Brooms posed that witches, given to riding on 



brooms, specially favoured those which 



the obliging tree miraculously produced. Possibly the 



curious growths are due to a fungus, which so excites 



163 



