2i6 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



sheep as well as ponies have taken the notion into 

 their heads that white weather is coming. The 

 sheep, also, are making tracks, but in a different 

 direction from the ponies. Their food is the same, 

 but their habits and their choice of shelter are very 

 different. 



Wild - fowl in companies of three and two, far 

 apart, rush overhead, high up, to certain points and 

 back again, wild ducks they are, so far as we are 

 able to determine from their flight. Where the 

 mast lies in profusion the birds are very busy on 

 and under the fallen leaves. Wood-pigeons, espe- 

 cially, are filling their crops in most business-like 

 fashion. There is no playing about, no rushing up 

 to the tree -tops to spread wings and tails and to 

 trim their feathers ; all that they are bent on now is 

 to stow away a good crop of food before the snow 

 comes and covers it in. They will still be able to 

 get something to eat when that happens, but it will 

 be under difficulties, for the birds will have to plough 

 the snow off with their broad breasts, unless it lies 

 too thickly for them to do this, and to flirt it to 

 right and left of them in white powdery puffs. A 

 large number of wild pigeons marching along on the 



