184 THE PARTRIDGE 



woods beyond the nearest hill, and the incessant, 

 angry twittering of hedgerow birds whose warm 

 night sanctuaries in holly and gorse bush were 

 being invaded by strangers that could find no 

 protection from the cold among the bare haw- 

 thorns where they had usually slept. All these 

 sounds, even the songs of the robins, seemed 

 mysteriously in accord with the desolate aspect 

 of hillside and valley. 



Under the snow-laden gorse, the partridges 

 obtained a frugal meal of seeds and hibernating 

 insects by scratching away the shallow soil 

 covering the upper roots of the sapling trees. 

 The darkness deepened, the moon's ashen light 

 gleamed on the white waste, one by one the stars 

 peeped from the cloudless sky, and every voice 

 but that of a robin still singing by the brook was 

 hushed. The hare left her " form " in the hedge- 

 bank, and leisurely set forth on her night's 

 lonely journey ; and, along the margin of the 

 thickets, the rabbits played with one another, or, 

 after clearing away the snow from favourite 

 little patches of clover, nibbled the crisp leaves 

 exposed to view. The partridges, having with 

 difficulty found sufficient food and for that 

 reason prolonged their stay in cover till night- 

 fall, settled down at last on the leeward side of 

 some reeds in the rough pasture below the wheat- 

 field ; where, an hour later, a poacher, setting 



