206 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



their winter bird-population, ready to share with us 

 all the hazard of winter and rough weather unless an 

 exceptionally severe spell of frost should send them 

 still further south. 



SEED-TIME AND HARVEST. 



As the autumn runs its course a hundred crops are 

 garnered which do not affect the world's food supply, 

 and regarding which no reports emanate from Mark 

 Lane. Furred and feathered harvesters alike are 

 keenly alive to the fact that this is the time of year of 

 the ripening and perfection of grain arid seed, nut and 

 berry — of crops which are all their own to garner or to 

 glean. The birds have naught to think of but the 

 moment's enjoyment of this " feast of fat things," 

 but the small rodents, squirrel, vole and field-mouse, 

 have in addition to make provision for a time of sleep 

 or of drowsy inactivity. From a hole in a sandy bank 

 beside a field-path protrude some ends of straw which 

 a dog has uncovered in scratching. On opening up 

 the miniature granary, it is found to contain just 

 over two hundred ears of corn, each neatly cut off 

 close to the top of the stalk. The proprietor, whose 

 " best-laid schemes " have thus gone " agley," is 

 no doubt a short-tailed field-vole. The same little 

 animal, or possibly a long-tailed field-mouse, has filled 

 this old blackbirds' nest full of alder-cones and seeds, 



