4 i2 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



tip of the rod, and, alighting, surely by mischance, in 

 a square yard of open water, swan to the bank, and 

 sat there, too glum to look for food in the most likely 

 place within a two-mile radius. 



Less than two days later the river was free again, 

 the snow- sheet sank through the grass, the plastered 

 ice came off the trees, the snipe went back to its 

 normal quarters, the starlings chattered again and 

 walked, sun-glancing, after grubs, the weather was as 

 mild as in the pre-glacial period. We cannot find 

 that any damage has been done to anything by the 

 late frost. Cold does not often, if ever, kill our birds, 

 and the spell was not long enough to starve them. 

 It merely made them tame, either out of desperation 

 at the loss of their food supply, or, as it made us, 

 listless, and vaguely desirous of going to sleep till 

 the hard time was over. Here was the opportunity 

 of their enemies, especially the four-footed animals who 

 do not often get on terms of such equality. But fox 

 and weasel find a sudden snatch of cold even more 

 soporific than the birds. Our fox does not seem to 

 have moved while the snow was on the ground, and 

 except for a blackbird that a cat has caught or found 

 dead, the supply of birds is as it was. 



The lake is still thinly and rottenly coated with 

 ice. The moorhens sit hunchbacked high in the 

 alders, as though they were afraid that the fox might 

 stalk them across the ice. Their period of foodless- 

 ness is probably longer than that of the other birds. 

 On the other hand, it is always a matter for complete 

 wonder what the moorhens eat, even in an open 

 winter. Some of the ducks have departed for a 

 better foraging-ground. On the same errand came 



