310 Wild Life in a Southern County 



bubbles travel along beneath, it. The moorhens cannot 

 get at the water ; neither can the herons or kingfishers. 

 The latter suffer greatly, and a fortnight of such severe 

 weather is fatal to them. 



I recollect walking by a brook like this, and seeing the 

 blue plumage of a kingfisher perched on a bush. I swung 

 my gun round ready to shoot as soon as he should fly, but 

 the bird sat still and took no notice of my approach. 

 Astonished at this — for the kingfisher sat in such a position 

 as easily to see any one coming ; and these birds generally 

 start immediately they perceive a person — I walked swiftly 

 up opposite the bush. The bird remained on the bough. 

 I put out the barrel of my gun and touched his ruddy 

 breast with the muzzle ; he fell on the ice below. He had 

 been frozen on his perch during the night, and probably 

 died more from starvation than from cold, since it was im- 

 possible for him to get at any fish. 



More than once afterwards the same winter I found 

 kingfishers dead on the ice under bushes, lying on their 

 backs wit: their contracted claws uppermost, having 

 fallen dead from roost. Possibly the one found on the 

 branch may have been partly supported by some small 

 twig. 



That winter snow afterwards fell and became a few 

 inches thick, drifting in places to several feet. Then it 

 was the turn of the other birds and animals to feel the pain 

 of starvation. In the meadows the tracks of rabbits 

 crossed and recrossed till the idea of following their course 

 had to be abandoned. At first sight it seemed as if the 

 snow had suddenly revealed the presence of a legion of 

 •rabbits where previously no one had suspected the exist- 

 ence of more 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 



