THE PERSUASION OF FROST 41 



to the brook-bank at night. What salient three-pronged 

 tracks will be traced over the lawn, where the moor-hen 

 have stridden along in search of some rotten apple-rind 

 half hidden in the coating of snow. 



All this, and much more, we anticipate for the morrow, 

 but a visit on the following week to the coast (which has 

 as many winter as summer attractions) made me realise 

 that our inland signs are a mere scroll compared with 

 the volumes readable by seaside observers. The great 

 solace and safeguard of birds is the sea and the estuary. 

 There is a winter migration to favourite regions such as 

 the marshy edges of the sea at Wells, the Pembrokeshire 

 moors, the Blackwater, or the Humber, and, far west, on 

 the Irish Swilly, that may compare in bulk with the great 

 spring and autumn movements, though they are quite 

 of a different sort. This year, while the weather was 

 open, the natives of such watery lands (especially on 

 Scottish islands), lamented that they had seen no black 

 geese Brent or Barnacle no black duck such as 

 scaup, or scoter ; fewer flocks of knot or dunlin pursued 

 the falling wave, &quot;like another wave,&quot; as someone, I 

 think Mr. Massingham, has written; that snipe and 

 woodcock are anywhere or nowhere. Birds desert the 

 sea as well as the inland for the sake of the ooze ; &quot; One 

 foot on sea and one on shore &quot; becomes a rule of life ; 

 if we may consider the tidal river to be a branch of the 

 sea. Even in London we may be aware of the sea-change, 

 for there are more gulls about the Thames, and along 

 the Embankment itself odd members of other species 

 join the black-headed company. 



It is a hard life, a hard world, in the strictest sense of 

 the attribute. All the birds are intent to discover some 

 softer surface ; the rooks fly down to the mole-hills that, 

 being tip-tilted towards the sun, are the first to thaw ; 



