flungry Flares. 381 
than a dozen. But in fact a couple of rabbits only 
will so run to and fro on the snow as to cover a 
meadow with the imprints of their feet—looking 
everywhere for a green blade. 
Yet they only occasionally scratch away the snow, 
and so get at the grass. Though the natural instinct 
of rabbits is to dig, and though here and there a place 
may be seen where they appear to have searched for 
a favourite morsel, yet they do not seem to acquire 
the sense of systematically clearing snow away. They 
then bark ash—and, indeed, nearly any young sapling 
or tree—and visit gardens in the night, as the hares do 
also. They creep about along the mounds, being 
driven by hunger to search for food all day instead of 
remaining part of the time in the buries. 
As to the hares, little more than a week of deep 
snow cripples their strength : they will run but twenty 
or thirty yards, and may be killed occasionally with a 
stick or captured alive. They are even more helpless 
than rabbits, because the latter still have holes to take 
refuge in from danger ; but the hare while the snow 
lasts is a wretched creature, and knows not where to 
turn. Birds resort to the cattle-sheds to roost; 
among them the blackbirds, who usually roost in the 
hedges. Birds come to the houses and gardens in 
numbers because the snow is there cleared away along 
the paths. 
During severe weather the water-meadows are the 
most frequented places. They are rarely altogether 
