xvi LETTERS TO MARCO 103 



middle. Lastly, in extreme frosts, this channel 

 itself freezes and the moving waters are sud- 

 denly stilled ; where you have been accus- 

 tomed so long to see the running stream day 

 by day, this stoppage has quite a startling 

 effect. 



You may easily imagine that we feed the 

 birds every day. They come in flocks : 

 thrushes, blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, tom- 

 tits, starlings, sparrows, and even rooks. 

 They share the chickens' food, scour the 

 waste-heaps, and search every possible nook 

 and cranny, as well as taking the scraps we 

 throw from the windows. I go round with a 

 fork and turn over the manure-heaps and piles 

 of dead leaves, etc., turning out now and then 

 masses of hibernating snails, glued together 

 in lumps, from out-of-the-way hiding-places, 

 which I scatter in the open so as to supply 

 as much as possible the natural food of the 

 birds, and prevent them from getting dainty 

 by eating too much of meat scraps, etc. 



The tits are the best off of all, for I hang 



