378 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Rooks rose, too, from all about, and, after circling and flapping 

 around a little, flew to a plantation, where, shortly, the Crow 

 flew also. It was not quite the same thing as yesterday, there- 

 fore, since the Crow was not immediately joined in the air, when 

 he cried out. Still it much resembled this, and the one case 

 gives point to the other. The Rooks all rose as at a signal, and 

 flew off to somewhere near to where the Crow had flown, and 

 there, shortly, he went too. The whole gave the idea of some 

 curious, oblique sort of relation between the two species, but 

 what it was, or what it is, I knqw not. Yesterday I thought that 

 the Rooks flew towards the Crow's cries, thinking he had found 

 something. But now, since this was not the case here, and the 

 two incidents are so much alike, " I do let loose mine opinion, 

 hold it no longer." 



The Golden-crested Wren's note is a little needley one, like 

 the Blue Tit's " zee, zee, zee, zee, zee," only thinner, a still 

 slenderer needle of sound. 



December 15th. — A dark, misty day — frosty withal, but not 

 "kindly" — darkest and mistiest and frostiest, I think, in this 

 clump of alders, growing amidst the muddy water of a muddy 

 swamp. It ought not to be a frost to-day — it does not look like 

 one — but it is. Frosty powder is on the litter of dropped twig 

 and crumpled leaf that lies dead on the dead, dank earth : frost 

 beads the upper stalks and sorrowfully drooping heads of the 

 dilapidated reeds : beads, too, the thin threads of gossamer that, 

 even now, loop them about — shaking still-ly with them in the still, 

 sad air — whilst crumbs of it lie loose in the grooved channel of 

 each long, narrow leaf, now brown and bare and brittle. It is 

 all frost, and the black water in which everything is growing oozes 

 under thin ribs of frosted ice. But it is a frost that saddens, not 

 that braces and exhilarates. It seems born out of the mists that 

 hang over all — a dead, dank sodden world, till a little spot of 

 crimson life glows through the alders, and the Robin has perched 

 on a bough. It was death, coldness, darkness before — now it is 

 life, warmth, and colour. 



December Kith. — It is very cold at 7 a.m. ; trees and every- 

 thing covered with white hoar-frost. Notwithstanding this there 

 are numerous Squirrels about in the plantation, and actively 

 feeding. They feed on the fir-cones, which should be a banquet 



