THE WINTERERS 



IT has been questioned whether our English countryside is 

 more populous in winter or summer, The coming birds take 

 the place of the departing birds and the general average is 

 maintained. However this may be, every naturalist feels 

 that his world is emptying very fast as the hours of sunshine 

 diminish. Every day, mysterious disappearances take place. 

 The frogs no longer jump with a pleasant plop into the river 

 as you walk along the edge. The squirrels that not so long 

 ago were raiding your filbert plantations or frisking about 

 the adjacent deodar are not discoverable anywhere. You 

 can no longer play the game of cheating the bats by throw- 

 ing up small gravel stones for them to hawk at, nor listen for 

 the squeak, pitched so high that few people can hear it at 

 all after their ' salad days ' are over. The bees are gone, 

 the wasps are gone, and you begin one day to realise that 

 thousands of creatures have done of themselves what the 

 farmer has done with his stock. 



They have retired to winter quarters. Soon you may travel 

 many score of miles along any railway and have trouble 

 to find a field that is not emptied of all domestic animals, so 

 empty are the haunts of the naturalist. In more northern 

 lands the race of living things seems quite to disappear. 



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