BRITISH GAME-BIRDS. 211 



the frost, it does not cover up all places completely. 

 Brambles, thorns, and dead bracken, torey - grass 

 and bent tuffets, may to all appearance look covered 

 up, but it is not really so ; underneath all is warm 

 and dry, and not a vestige of snow will you find 

 there, unless you kick it in with your foot, or hit 

 it with your stick to make it fall. Nature's own 

 pure covering this is wherewith to protect her 

 children. They know where to go, and how to 

 form their shelters from all the winds that blow. 

 As to feeding, not one-tenth part of the wild fruits 

 and berries are gathered by human hands ; and 

 as to the plants that bear seed of some kind, who 

 can tell how many provide food for the game-birds ? 

 for they ripen and fall, being unconsidered hedge- 

 row and field-plant provender. I have just returned 

 from rough - meadow lands, snow-covered, whither 

 I went in order to watch outlying coveys feeding in 

 the snow. 



Hawkweeds, thistles, ground brambles the trail- 

 ing kind that runs over the pastures in places here 

 and there, forming low clumps a few inches in height 

 are not exactly what a farmer would like to see in 

 his pasture-lands ; but as some of these at one time 



