282 ON SURREY HILLS. 



CHAPTER X. 



WILD LIFE IN WINTER. 



THERE is a weird silence over Nature, both by day 

 and by night. Unless you startle some creature 

 from its shelter, you will not hear the faintest rustle 

 as you walk along. All live things, both furred and 

 feathered, remain in their hiding-places, croped up, to 

 use the rustic term for being miserable. So thickly 

 has the hoar-frost been clothing the leafless branches 

 and the most slender twigs of the trees for many 

 days, that they droop with the weight of it. Copse 

 and hedgerow are clothed with the same sparkling 

 mantle; and some of the bracken stems, where 

 they are crooked by natural decay, look like the 

 hind - feet of hares modelled in frosted silver ; in 



