i8i A BIRD CALENDAR 



wind. The hawthorn berries have all been 

 eaten. Insect food there is none ; it is only 

 in the summer time that the comfortable 

 hum of insects is heard in England. Thus 

 the ordinary food supply of the fowls of the 

 air is greatly restricted, and scores of field- 

 fares and other birds die of starvation. The 

 snow-covered lawn in front of every house, 

 of which the inmates are in the habit of 

 feeding the birds, is the resort of many 

 feathered things. Along with the robins and 

 sparrows habitual recipients of the alms of 

 man are blackbirds, thrushes, tits, starlings, 

 chaffinches, rooks, jackdaws and others, which 

 in fair weather avoid, or scorn to notice, man. 

 These have become tamed by the cold, and 

 they stand on the snow, cold, forlorn and half- 

 starved a miserable company of supplicants 

 for food. Throughout the short cold winter 

 days scarcely a bird note is heard ; the fowls 

 of the air are in no mood for song. 



Contrast the behaviour of the birds on a 

 winter's day in India. In every garden scores 

 of them lead a joyful existence. Little flocks 

 of minivets display their painted wings as 

 they flit hither and thither, hunting insects on 

 the leaves of trees. Amid the foliage warblers, 



