308 December Peace 



of the smaller birds to nest, and are closely followed 

 by blackbirds and robins and hedge-sparrows. All 

 these birds feed later into the dusk than finches or 

 starlings ; and although in a night of nearly sixteen 

 hours a gain of half an hour or an hour does not 

 seem a great matter, to the frail organization of a 

 bird the benefit may be greater than we suppose. 

 Plovers and moorhens both begin to lay before 

 the end of March ; and they, too, are wakeful in the 

 winter nights, as their voices testify. Long after 

 dark we hear the plover's querulous cry from the 

 ploughed field or watery meadow where its flock 

 has settled to sleep, and the harsher croak of the 

 moorhen comes up from the ponds and streams. 

 Best fitted of all birds to face the winter are the owls, 

 to whom night is day. Brown owls hoot as per- 

 sistently in autumn and winter as in spring and 

 summer; and they, too, begin to lay their eggs 

 in March or even February. The white owl's 

 screech is heard less often ; but its pale plumage 

 and habit of hunting in open places make it more 

 visible. It drifts by the hedge in the winter dusk 

 like a wreath of white fog. Though it glides past 

 like the very spirit of silence, a few moments later 

 its yell may echo down the valley. Then the 

 sleep of the night is stirred by the voices of the 

 more wakeful birds ; the moorhen calls again from 

 the stream, and the plovers answer from the hillside. 

 Just as the night's sleep of many birds is light 

 and broken, the longer and deeper slumber of hiber- 

 nation varies in duration and intensity. Once the 

 dormice have retreated into the winter nests hidden 



