ceeenee 
Birds Starved. 379 
has been a rough wind, and the waves on the lake 
cannot freeze while in motion. So that a long frost 
is extremely difficult to foresee. 
But it comes at last. Two.really sharp frosts will 
cause ice thick enough to bear a lad at the edge of 
the lake ; three will bear a man a few yards out ; four, 
and it is safe to cross: in a week the ice is between 
three and four inches thick, and would carry a waggon. 
The* character of ice varies: if some sleet has been 
falling—or snow, which facilitates freezing—it is thick 
in colour; if the wind was still it is dark, sleek, per- 
fectly transparent. It varies, however, in different 
places, in some having a faint yellowish hue. There 
are always several places where the ice does not 
freeze till the last—breathing-holes in which the ducks 
swim; and where a brook enters it is never quite 
safe. 
The snipes come now to the brook and water- 
meadows. Following the course of the stream, field- 
fares and redwings rise in numbers from every 
hawthorn bush, where they have been feeding on the 
peggles. Blackbirds start out from under the bushes, 
where there is perhaps a little moist earth still. The 
foam where there is a slight fall is frozen, and the 
cutrent runs under a roof of ice; the white bubbles 
travel along beneath it. The moorhens cannot get at 
the water; neither can the herons or kingfishers, 
The latter suffer greatly, and a fortnight of such 
severe weather is fatal to them. 
