JANUARY 29 



claw. Little parties of them — quite a picture of hard 

 times — with their feathers puffed out on account of the 

 cold, crowd every spot where the wind has swept away 

 the snow, or search disconsolately for traces of turnip- 

 tops here and there breaking its surface. A note, soft 

 as the twitter of a goldfinch, calls attention to a 

 Woodlark amongst them — no mistaking its short, 

 stumpy figure and conspicuous eye-streak. Fieldfares 

 are snatching greedily at the few remaining haws. 

 Every stackyard has its hungry host of finches and 

 yellow-hammers. Only the Snow Buntings seem to be 

 in their element, as if fancying themselves back in their 

 far northern home. The glass shows that some, no 

 doubt the old birds, are whiter than others, and that, 

 on the ground, they take short, quick runs, more after 

 the fashion of mice than birds. With clatter of wings 

 a great flock of Wood Pigeons takes flight, already 

 so hungry that they will return to fill their crops 

 with turnip-tops although repeatedly fired at. A 

 striking figure is that of an old hare as he sits 

 bolt upright just on the sky-line in the middle of 

 a perfectly white snow-field. Bad times are these 

 for game of all sorts, as the partridges experience, 

 for the snow renders them plainly visible to their 

 enemies. 



Next day the tide of migration has slackened; 

 by the third day it has spent itself. Yet, doubtful as 

 is the fate of those birds which have fled, the compara- 



