CHAPTER XV 

 A GREAT FROST 



A second wave of cold Migrating goldfinches Increase in number 

 of" wintering birds Beginning of the frost At Zennor Feed- 

 ing the birds under difficulties A crippled robin Crystal fruit 

 Prowess of a fox Fox and raven The foxes' larder Migrat- 

 ing ravens Frosted window panes Starving birds Starlings 

 going to roost Evening on Zennor Hill Heath fires The windy 

 night Animism and personifications of nature The end of the 

 frost. 



THERE was no second westward movement of 

 birds in the winter of 1906-7, although 

 another and more intense spell of cold weather 

 occurred a month after the one described in the last 

 chapter. It looked as if the birds had exhausted 

 their powers in their long disastrous flight to and 

 from the Land's End, or that some saving instinct had 

 failed to come to them on this occasion. Doubtless 

 many thousands had perished in that journey over a 

 snow-covered country to the extremity of Cornwall, 



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