CHAPTER XVII 

 THE COMING OF SPRING 



Spring in winter John Cocking Antics and love-flights of the 

 shag Herring gull mocked by a jackdaw Migrating sea-birds 

 Departure of winter visitors Appearance of the wheatear 

 Resident songsters The frogs' carnival A Dominican adder 

 Willow-wren and chifFchaff Nesting birds and washing-day 

 A merciful woman Pied wagtails in a quarry Boys and 

 robins. 



ATER the frost described two chapters back, the 

 change to the normal winter temperature was 

 so great as to make it seem like spring before 

 the end of January. When spring does come to 

 England, known to all by many welcome signs, it 

 makes but a very slight difference in this West 

 Cornwall district and is hardly recognised. For 

 more than half the year, from October to May, 

 it is comparatively a verdureless and flowerless land, 

 dark with furze and grey with rocks and heather, 

 splashed with brown-red of dead bracken. Not till 



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