JANUARY. 



THE HOLLY AND THE BIRDS. 



The result was rather curious in different parishes. 

 In some the emissaries and helpers of the parsons 

 had taken the field betimes and collected stores of 

 berried holly for the church two days beforehand. 

 In others, where reliance was placed upon supplies 

 contributed by parishioners, the birds were before- 

 hand with the holly gatherers, and many a tree which 

 had flamed with scarlet on the previous day had 

 been stripped of the last glint of a berry between 

 dawn and breakfast-time. And, after all, the holly 

 fulfils its function better in feeding the birds than in 

 decorating even sacred masonry ; for, like almost all 

 thorny or prickly trees, it proclaims its dependence 

 upon the birds by the very arrangement of its 

 defences. So high as cattle can reach, its twisted 

 spiky leaves present their bayonets at every angle 

 against all comers ; but at a higher level, where 

 most of the berries cluster and the birds are welcome, 

 the leaves grow straight and spikeless. The haw- 

 thorn exhibits the same choice of guests in a great 

 measure ; but you see this best, perhaps, in other 

 lands, as in India, where the babool tree is thornless 

 in the upper branches, on which the weaver-birds 

 hang their swinging bottle-nests, but below, as high 

 as camels can reach, it carries a formidable armature 

 of two-inch thorns. 



