Lichens as Food 277 



which may resort thither to roost, or perhaps a Wren. If 

 the snow lies for any length of time (as it often does in 

 their haunts further north, though more seldom here), 

 the hermits may be forced to retreat to the neighbourhood 

 of the nearest shieling, there to eke out a living about the 

 middens, or hay stacks ; but on the first abatement of the 

 storm, they withdraw again, as though ashamed to be seen 

 in their dingy winter dress. Such journeys, for birds like 

 Chats, are, of course, no great undertaking ; but I have 

 often wondered what becomes of the poor Wren, when 

 supplies fail, and the only retreat is across several miles of 

 snow-covered moor. Yet after a long spell of very low 

 temperature, and much snow, one year (in the north), when 

 all our birds were sadly thinned in the low country five 

 Wrens, all frozen to death, being found huddled together 

 in one hole in the garden wall I well remember finding 

 a pair of Wrens, in April, nesting contentedly in a rocky, 

 and quite treeless gorge, high up upon a mountain, where 

 the probability was they had weathered the storm that 

 decimated their lowland relatives. 



It would be too near a crime to kill such hardy little birds 

 that have dared to bide all the foul blasts that blow in such 

 regions, for the mere gratification of one's curiosity as to 

 what their food had consisted of ; but I once picked up a dead 

 Stonechat in the snow, far out upon the >moor, and took 

 the opportunity of examining its crop. It was a female, 

 in very good condition, with nothing to indicate the cause 

 of its death. Its stomach contained, in addition to some 

 grass seeds, several bits of stone lichen, apparently Parmelia 

 saxatilis. Seeds doubtless constitute no inconsiderable part 

 of the ordinary fare of such birds during winter, though 

 insects, worms, and grubs may be preferred when obtain- 

 able ; and probably the reason of their resorting so frequently 

 to hay stacks, on a hill, is for the grass seeds they contain, 

 as much as for the creeping things they give shelter to. 

 May it not be from the Stonechat's discovery of the esculent 

 virtues of lichens, that its love of wintering amongst rocks, 

 overgrown with these plants, has arisen ? There does not 

 appear to be any reason why birds should not appreciate 



