WINTER SHIFTS. 285 



In looking after the welfare of garden species 

 during severe weather, it should never be for- 

 gotten* that they are at such times almost as 

 much in need of water as food. 



Some birds enjoy a bath even in the coldest of 

 weather, and to watch a robin or an old cock 

 starling delightedly splashing about in a dish of 

 water with lumps of ice floating on the surface, 

 immediately before retiring to roost, when both 

 a steely-blue sky and the thermometer foretell 

 another night of black frost, is enough to make 

 the hardiest observer shiver. 



One would think that the mercury must 

 occasionally, however, fall too low for such 

 winter ablutions, for in the memorable first two 

 months of 1895 the thermometer fell to 20 

 below zero in Scotland. Kingfishers were found 

 frozen to iron rails, wild geese to the ground, 

 and robins were seen to enter cowsheds in order 

 to sit on the backs of animals for the sake of 

 imparted warmth. 



For the tits I buy small cocoanuts, saw a piece 

 off either end, and making a groove round the 

 centre, suspend them in the garden. Great, blue, 

 cole, and marsh tits all love this kind of fare, once 

 they taste it, and the series of photographs of the 

 first-named species reproduced on the two following 

 pages testifies to their antics and the amount of 

 fun they provide whilst attacking the food. 



