Spring Nooks in Winter 303 



winter light a more vivid beauty emerges from the 

 contrast of the grey and olive plumage of the 

 water-hen, with its blood-red phylactery on its 

 forehead. When the silence of a winter's morning 

 lies on the watercress beds, sometimes the lurking 

 water-rail will glide softly out of the bordering 

 herbage, and dibble with its long bill in the channels. 

 Always shy and elusive, at the sound of a footstep 

 on the hill it will slip back like a shadow into the 

 sedge, though the kingfisher posted in the willow 

 does not shift a muscle of its body. All these 

 birds are drawn to the same spot, because there 

 alone in a wide range of landscape the elements 

 have the mildness of spring. When true spring 

 comes, they will scatter ; and their concentration 

 on the unfrozen hollow, and their dispersal, are 

 as truly a form of migration as the southward 

 journey of the sedge- warbler and its return in 

 April to the willows. 



Of all the birds seen in winter by this spring, 

 only the pied wagtail may possibly avoid migration 

 altogether. It may nest in a hole in one of the 

 willows on the very spot, and prove itself a resident 

 bird, as it is generally said to be. But all the 

 others must migrate, even though the spring migra- 

 tion in the case of the water-hen may be no longer 

 or more arduous than a trip to the reed- beds fifty 

 yards below. The water-rail's movements are 

 secret and hard to trace ; but water-rails certainly 

 migrate a good deal between winter and summer, as 

 is shown by their distribution at different seasons. 

 The kingfisher, " bird of March," will reappear on 



