STARVING BIRDS 67 



sight which pleads for the mercy of a swift death at 

 the gamekeeper's hands. The mother hare is keenly 

 alive to the dangers besetting her family. If you find 

 a leveret one day nestling in a tuft of grass, or against 

 a clod of earth, whether or not you handle it the 

 mother will certainly remove it before the morrow. 

 She will wind danger in your scent. 



The old name for March, "Starvation Month," 

 is usually justified, if winter, with snow, carries on 



into March. Countless birds die of starva- 

 BirdI mS t * on * After a hard winter there is little 



food to be found ; but large berries remain 

 a long time on some of the ivy bushes, and come into 

 favour among robins and blackbirds. There has been 

 little green growth since September, though the larger 

 celandine shows bigger leaves, coltsfoot is out, wild 

 arum leaves are green in the hedges, and there is 

 green growth on elder-bushes, woodbine, privet, and 

 brier bushes. Insect life for food is of negligible 

 quantity : though myriads of gnats may be hatched 

 by the sun, they are poor eating. Of flowers there are 

 hardly any, and the sparrow, pecking at the crocuses 

 in his need, earns the hatred of gardeners. It is a 

 time of hunger with many animals awakening out of 

 sleep ; with the field-voles uncurling from their beds 

 of grass, and with the hedgehogs shaking them- 

 selves free of their balls of leaves. A new activity 

 is stirring, birds are living at pressure, many animals 



