174 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



who does not learn something from this sketch ? How natu- 

 rally, as it were, did the hypothesis of the spider's web being 

 used for the chaffinch's nest come into the observer's mind. 

 There is no attempt at fine writing, but these, and a few para- 

 graphs which we have omitted, give a fair life history of the 

 bird. 



During the hard weather which closed 1874, bird lovers 

 grieved over many birds which met their death by starvation. 

 When a bird dies of old age, that curious instinct which is not 

 wholly unknown in the higher animals, warns it to retire into a 

 spot secluded from the busy life of its fellows. It is the 

 rarest thing to find a dead bird save during a frost. Its rigours 

 cause the weaker birds to forget the convenances of happier 

 times, and the stronger instinct of self-preservation supersedes 

 the love of a decorus death. Our northern visitors, the field- 

 fares and redwings, especially the latter, succumb first to cold. 

 Redbreasts are also speedily affected, and are found before 

 death hopping in yards, outhouses, &c., mere bags of bones. 

 The migratory thrushes, during the severe spell of weather in 

 December, 1874, were driven to the abodes of men, and were 

 even picked up dead in West End thoroughfares. Multitudes 

 of them in their enfeebled condition are knocked down by 

 village boys in the country, and many more shot by the 

 prowling gunners who at such a time appear to spring up from 

 the earth. On the Continent bird lovers are more humane. 

 During the severe December of 1874, a society formed at 

 Halle gave three meals a day to many hundreds of birds at 

 twenty-two stations in the neighbourhood of the town, believing 

 that the expense will be repaid a hundredfold by the destruction 

 of noxious insects. 



Spite of their small size, the wren and the diminutive gold- 

 crest seem able to endure the most inclement weather. The 

 tomtits also rejoice in it, and their merry twitterings are the 

 only sounds which break the silence of the snow-laden pine 



