134 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



swarm in the garden the wild birds more confiding, 

 and the home birds tame. Tits hang to the suet 

 bags, and a general assembly flock to the corn-sheaf. 

 A ring-ouzel flies wildly from a rowan-tree, and four 

 or five species of thrushes are among the berries of 

 the shrubs. So softly wimtowed is the falling snow, 

 that it scarcely bends the few grasses and dead plants 

 that appear above the surface. 



The kindly snow obliterates the torn and abraded 

 scars of Nature, but it not the less effectually re- 

 produces the prints of her children. To the light the 

 snow reveals the doings of the night. Does a mouse 

 so much as cross, she leaves her delicate tracery on 

 the white coverlet. Away from the homestead, 

 rabbits have crossed and recrossed the fields in a 

 perfect maze. That ill-defined " pad " tracks a 

 hare to the turnips. Pheasants and wood-pigeons 

 have scratched for mast beneath the beeches, and 

 we find red blood-drops by the fence. These are 

 tracked to a colony of weasels in the old wall. Last 

 night a piteous squeal might have been heard from 

 the half -buried fence, and a little tragedy would be 

 played out upon the snow. Five wild swans cleave 

 the thin air afar up, and fly off with outstretched 

 necks. The tiny brown wren bids defiance to the 

 weather, darting in and out of every hole and 

 crevice, and usually reappearing with the cocoon of 

 some insect in its bill. 



