Out of Doors in February 



in the fields or have the care of woods, with their 

 apparent prescience. They lead the new comer to 

 a hedge, or the corner of a copse, or a bend of the 

 brook, announcing beforehand that they feel assured 

 something will be found there; and so it is. This, 

 too, is one reason why a fixed observer usually sees 

 more than one who rambles a great deal and covers 

 ten times the space. The fixed observer who hardly 

 goes a mile from home is like the man who sits still 

 by the edge of a crowd, and by-and-by his lost 

 companion returns to him. To walk about in search 

 of persons in a crowd is well known to be the worst 

 way of recovering them. Sit still and they will often 

 come by. In a far more certain manner this is the 

 case with birds and animals. They all come back. 

 During a twelvemonth probably every creature would 

 pass over a given locality: every creature that is not 

 confined to certain places. The whole army of the 

 woods and hedges marches across a single farm in 

 twelve months. A single tree especially an old tree 

 is visited by four-fifths of the birds that ever perch 

 in the course of that period. Every year, too, brings 

 something fresh, and adds new visitors to the list. 

 Even the wild sea birds are found inland, and some 

 that scarce seem able to fly at all are cast far ashore 

 by the gales. It is difficult to believe that one would 

 not see more by extending the journey, but, in fact, 

 experience proves that the longer a single locality 

 is studied the more is found in it. But you should 

 know the places in winter as well as in tempting 

 summer, when song and shade and colour attract 

 every one to the field. You should face the mire 

 and slippery path. Nature yields nothing to the 

 sybarite. The meadow glows with buttercups in 

 spring, the hedges are green, the woods lovely; but 

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