96 A GARDEN DIARY 



of reckoning ; while as for the birds and beasts, 

 they are much more disposed to turn to us for 

 help, than to make any friendly propositions the 

 other way. 



It may be mere vanity upon my part, but it 

 always seems to me that small birds recognise 

 their heavy, wingless, two-legged kinsfolk with 

 less difficulty during this sort of weather than at 

 any other time of the year. The fact that one 

 bribes them to such recognition by vulgar doles 

 of breadcrumbs may have something to say to 

 the matter, but I fancy that I read a distinctly 

 kindlier expression in their eyes. They glance 

 at us with an air of comparative condescension. 

 They perceive that we share their own help- 

 lessness ; that we are not so very different from 

 themselves, only bigger and stupider. For in- 

 stance, I have been publicly snubbed this whole 

 winter by the tomtits. Under the eye and to the 

 knowledge of the entire garden I set up a large 

 post, hung over with cocoa-nuts for their con- 

 venience. Some of these cocoa-nuts were sawn 

 into slices, others, more artfully, into rings, and 

 I pleased myself by believing that they would sit 

 and swing in them, as they pecked an unfamiliar, 

 but not unpalatable meal. Will it be believed 

 that not one tomtit has deigned to touch those 

 cocoa-nuts ? They have hopped to and fro on 

 the boughs almost within peck of them, yet never 

 so much as tried to ascertain whether they were 



