12 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
toad, moved about under the gorse of the garden hedge 
one morning, half hidden by the stalks of old grasses. 
By-and-by it hopped out—the last thrush, so distended 
with puffed feathers against the frost as to be almost 
shapeless. He searched about hopelessly round the 
stones and in the nooks, allhard and frostbound ; there 
was the shell of a snail, dry and whitencd and empty, as 
was apparent enough even at a distance. His keen eye 
must have told him that it was empty ; yet such was his 
hunger and despair that he took it and dashed it to 
pieces against a stone. Like a human being, his imagi- 
nation was stronger than his experience; he tried to 
persuade himself that there might be something there ; 
hoping against hope. Mind, you see, working in the 
bird’s brain, and overlooking facts. A mere mechanism 
would have left the empty and useless shell untouched— 
would have accepted facts at once, however bitter, just 
as the balance on the heaviest side declines immediately, 
obeying the fact of an extra grain of weight. The bird’s 
brain was not mechanical, and therefore he was not 
wholly mastered by experience. It was a purely human 
action—just what we do ourselves. Next he came across 
to the door to sce if a stray berry still remained on a 
‘creeper.. He saw me at the window, and he came to the 
window—right to it—and stopped and looked full at me 
some minutes, within touch almost, saying as plainly as 
could be said, ‘I am starving—help me.’ I never before 
knew a thrush-make so unmistakable an appeal for assist- 
ance, or deliberately approach so near (unless previously 
encouraged). We tried to feed him, but we fear little of 
the food reached him. The wonder of the incident was 
that a thrush should still be left—there had not been one 
in the garden for two months. Berries all gone, ground 
hard and foodless, streams frozen, snow lying for weeks, 
