NATURE NEAR LONDON 



birds, none have yet been eaten ; and, indeed, 

 haws seem to be resorted to only as a change, 

 unless severe weather compels. 



Just as we vary our diet, so birds eat haws, and 

 not many of them till driven by frost and snow. If 

 any stay on till the early months of next year, wood- 

 pigeons and missel-thrushes will then eat them ; 

 but at this season they are untouched. Black- 

 birds will peck open the hips directly the frost 

 comes ; the hips go long before the haws. There 

 was a large crop of mountain-ash berries, every one 

 of which has been taken by blackbirds and thrushes, 

 which are almost as fond of them as of garden 

 fruit. 



Blackberries are thick, too it is a berry year 

 and up in the horse-chestnut the prickly coated 

 nuts hang up in bunches, as many as eight on a 

 stalk. Acorns are large, but not so singularly 

 numerous as the berries, nor are hazel-nuts. This 

 provision of hedge-fruit no more indicates a severe 

 winter than a damaged wheat harvest indicates a 

 mild one. 



There is something wrong with elm trees. In 

 the early part of this summer, not long after the 

 leaves were fairly out upon them, here and there a 

 branch appeared as if it had been touched with 

 red-hot iron and burnt up, all the leaves withered 

 and browned on the boughs. First one tree was 

 168 



