Seeds and Sowers 273 



feeder, is the greediest of all birds for the ivy bough. 

 Many berries seem to be equally to the wood- 

 pigeon's taste, whether they are ripe or unripe; 

 perhaps when ripe they serve as fruit, and when 

 unripe as so much softish green-stuff. Even in 

 August the London wood-pigeons will flock to 

 gobble the unripe berries of the whitebeam trees 

 planted in parks and gardens ; and in January 

 the same scenes of timorous and wary greed are 

 repeated about the ivy-crowns that overshadow the 

 country lanes. The foot of the hedge-bank be- 

 neath is thickly sprinkled with the berries knocked 

 off by the flappings and uneasy balancings of the 

 great blue birds for they look blue against the 

 grey winter clouds, just as they are grey beneath 

 the blue skies of summer. On the next mild night 

 when the wood-mice stir abroad they gather the 

 fallen berries and carry them away to their own 

 little lairs and bivouacs in the crannies of the bank 

 or in the angles between the ivy stem and the 

 trunk up which it climbs. The small stones of 

 the yew, hawthorn, or whitebeam berry, which the 

 greenfinch crushes and the great tit breaks by 

 hammering, are dealt with more delicately by the 

 paws and teeth of the mouse. Through a small 

 round hole at one end the little nocturnal creature 

 gnaws out the kernel within. 



The colours of the berried bushes, and the life 

 of the birds that is heard or seen in their boughs, 

 give much of its characteristic interest to the winter 

 face of the land. The wave of blossom that fills 

 May now brings forth an answering harvest ; and 

 18 



