OCTOBER 207 



and has stored this double handful of haw-stones in a 

 crevice of the limestone rock. 



A fruitful autumn is hailed as making all the differ- 

 ence between plenty and want. Note the riotous 

 rejoicing of rooks, jays, pheasants, wood-pigeons 

 when there is a heavy fall of acorns and beech-mast. 

 And in addition to these larger fowl, which bolt them 

 whole or in good-sized fragments until their crops are 

 round and firm as a cricket ball, acorn and beech-nut 

 afford entertainment for weeks to chaffinches and 

 bramblings, great and coal-tits, which peck and 

 hammer chippings from them in a more retail manner. 

 Look further at all the lavish profusion of the hedgerows 

 in a kindly season, at bryonies white and black, cornel, 

 buckthorn, privet and guelder-rose. One of the 

 beauties of a fine and warm autumn is that the wood of 

 tree and shrub being well ripened, we are sure next 

 spring of a profusion of blossom, first and foremost 

 requisite for an abundance of hedge-fruit later in the 

 year. Much must of course depend upon the state 

 of the weather at the time of flowering, for, by no 

 possible understanding of the law of cause and effect 

 are we able to see in a plentiful supply of berries an 

 anticipation of the needs of the birds during a severe 

 winter to follow. 



It is evident that some of the hedge-fruits are not 

 favourites with the birds ; these are probably unpalat- 

 able or actually unwholesome. The coral ropes of 



