BIRDS IN I VINTER 
45 
get it easily is as great a boon to them as meat or bread. It is 
not the sparrow, however, who is the worst sufTerer from a hard 
frost. He has no fear of mankind, and will come close up to the 
kitchen door for what he wants ; and what he gets there is, after 
all, only supplementary to what he can pick up in the streets and 
thoroughfares. 
The birds, of course, which are exposed to the keenest 
privations are those which have to shift for themselves. The 
blackbirds and thrushes in the London Parks belong to this 
class. In one of the very hard winters which occurred a few 
years ago more than half of them perished. The ground is so 
hard that they cannot find any worms. There will, of course, be 
some soft places here and there which the frost has spared, and 
where a certain amount of food is procurable ; but not enough to 
prevent a general famine. Birds which are familiar with human 
habitations fare belter in the country than in town when snow is 
on the ground. Blackbirds and thrushes, chaffinches, linnets, 
house sparrows and hedge sparrows, robins and titmice should 
always be sure of a meal every morning on the lawn before the 
dining-room window. No man or woman who does not see to 
this deserves to have a country house at all. In the afternoon 
the birds have the stack-yard and the barn-yard for their wants, 
though these are not what they were when corn was threshed 
out with the flail, and the work was going on the whole winter 
through. Still they can pick up a bare subsistence there, though 
the blackbird only comes when he is very hard pressed, and then 
hangs about rather shyly at the back of the crowd, as if he felt 
himself in a false position. Other birds, not frequenters of the 
garden or the farmyard, will often join the group. The yellow- 
hammer, starved out of his hedgerow, will frequently make one 
of the little party in front of the barn door, or clinging to the 
side of the rick. The tomtit must not be forgotten, who, indeed, 
is always with us, and is not dependent for his food on the above 
resources. 
The manners of birds at such times are very amusing and 
interesting. The gulls and ducks in St. James’s Park behave in 
much the same manner as the sparrows and finches. They all 
alike act on the good old rule of taking what they can take, and 
keeping as much as they can. But this is the bright side of bird 
life in winter. There is another, which is more melancholy. 
There are some species which will never approach a human 
habitation near enough to be fed, and may often be seen in the 
fields and hedges either dead or dying of hunger. The fieldfare 
is one of these. When the hedge fruit and the holly berries 
have disappeared his plight in a hard winter is pitiable. Instead 
of the loud, cheerful chuckle by which he makes his presence 
known when in full health and spirits, and the rapid and timely 
flight by which he disappoints the youthful gunner who thinks 
he has just got within shot of him, he mopes, and creeps along 
the ground, almost waiting to be trod upon before he moves out 
