A GOLDEN-CRESTED UTREN 81 



far may we decide in the case of a single specimen ? As 

 birds have their individuality in habit and behaviour, 

 they have also their idiosyncrasies of plumage. This 

 winter I have seen a certain number of woodcock ; and 

 they have differed so widely in size and in depth of hue 

 that a good German scientist might be excused for label 

 ling this or that type as a sub-species. The truth is that 

 birds vary as men or sheep or rabbits vary. One gold- 

 crest differs from another in glory ; and this little victim 

 may have been famous among his fellows for the fraction 

 of a millimetre added to the splendour of his crest. 



7- 



One of the favourite winter walks in many shires is 

 along the bottom of Grimm s Dyke or the Devil s Dyke 

 or whatever you please to call the ancient fortification or 

 boundary. When the cold wind doth blow and there is 

 frost on the ground and snow in the air, the best walk is 

 usually a wood, especially a beech wood. The leaves lie 

 loose and yet consistently, like well-woven stuff, and, 

 however hard or muddy, the ground outside the floor of 

 the wood maintains its standard hospitality. The very 

 colour of the fallen leaves, if they are beech, is warm and 

 welcoming ; and they give birds and many animals just 

 what they seek. The blackbirds scratch up the leaves 

 hilariously; the tits and pheasants, and often finches, 

 robins, and wrens, find good picking there. The trees 

 and bushes, however bare, break the wind, but let the 

 light through. How very green are some of the mosses ; 

 and such stalwart plants as the blackberry keep their 

 summer leaves quite intact till they are shoved off, still 

 green, by the young spring buds. The honeysuckles, 

 though enemy to the scientific forester, achieve a wood- 



F T.V.E. 



