274 Seeds and Sowers 



its natural purpose is completed when the berries 

 gleam in the sunshine over a carpet of hard white 

 snow, and the boughs are thick with small birds, 

 ravening and wrangling. The sober attraction of 

 such a scene lies in the sense of the hungry being 

 fed, and of the old year's life being utilized for the 

 creation of the new. The birds that sustain them- 

 selves in winter's cold drop the seeds where they 

 will shoot in new places. But the brilliance of 

 form and colour on such a snowy morning has the 

 intensity of a child's early vision. The spectacle 

 of half a dozen golden pheasants feeding on the 

 orange and scarlet berries of a spindletree on a 

 snowy hillside is unsurpassed for sheer brilliance 

 of colour by any summer scene. 



