125 



BIRD-LIFE ON THE MOORS IN NOVEMBER. 



WITH November usually comes winter, and always the Snow- 

 Buntings, charming little birds apparently ordained by Nature 

 ever to enliven the most dreary prospects of snow and ice. 

 Cruel as such a destiny may appear, Nature has evidently 

 provided that it should not be so to them, for no bird appears 

 more blythe and joyous than the Snow-fleck. Whether one 

 sees him in summer, clad in black and white (as the writer 

 has done), among the grim and forbidding lands of the Arctic 

 Seas, or in winter on our own storm-swept hills, he is 

 always the same bright and happy, despite the most dreary 

 surroundings, seeming full of life and exuberant spirits, 

 flicking about more like a big butterfly than a bird ; and 

 his little triple trill is as cheery as his actions. It rather 

 resembles the rattle of a Partridge's wing, and one looks 

 round to see if some have passed behind. The Snow-flecks 

 arrive on the moors with great regularity about the 1st of 

 November, almost to a day, usually in large flocks, and feed 

 on the seeds of grass and rushes. Wherever a single seed- 

 bearing blade rises above the level of the snow, their little 

 footsteps may be seen imprinted on its surface. These 

 earlier flocks are almost entirely composed of immature birds. 

 The adults, with their winter plumage, are comparatively 

 scarce at all times, though they are rather more numerous 

 in mid-winter. 



In November the salmon leave the larger rivers and enter 

 the burns, while the trout, which spawn earlier, push far up 

 the tiniest hill streams, often taking advantage of a " spate'' 

 to reach spots high out on the fells, where the streamlet has 

 dwindled to a mere drain, with the shaggy heather meeting 



