February 



half a dozen, cowered in a sheltered corner of the 

 field, formed by the cross hedges. From time to 

 time one of them essayed to skim the hedge, but 

 was immediately hurled backward, and fell in again 

 crestfallen at the rear of his less venturesome com- 

 rades, only a few managing to get over during 

 temporary lapses of the wind. These worked their 

 way forward by short flights, hugging the ground 

 closely, until they skimmed up the lee side of a high 

 railway embankment, when, caught at the top by the 

 wind rushing up the farther side, they were whirled 

 aloft, and only saved themselves by wheeling out in 

 great arcs across the wind, tacking from point to 

 point, as if feeling for openings between the currents 

 of air. Strong flier as the rook is, he carries too 

 much sail for a gale, and the missel-thrushes, flying 

 high and straight in the wind with short, strong, 

 rapidly beating wings, showed themselves better 

 equipped for the emergency. 



The river Mersey, which is a stream of some 

 twenty to thirty feet in breadth in my neighbour- 

 hood, carried white-crested waves a foot high, and 

 the wind whipped the spray up in clouds as it 

 drove round the bends. For a few moments the 

 gale was terrific. I had just put up my glasses to 

 watch a pair of skylarks in the meadow below the 

 river embankment, when I was carried off my feet 

 by a furious gust, the larks were swept splashing 

 along the water meadows for fifty yards, dead timber 

 flew out straight from the trees like so much paper, 



75 



