WINTER BELOW BEACH Y HEAD 
7 1 
over and down to the branch below. Such a movement must 
be a perfect rapture to his joyous little soul, as it certainly is 
a joy to the eye of the beholder. Whilejone was busy with a 
fir-cone on a tree beside the path a young fellow passed on his 
way to the station. He walked briskly and whistled a merry 
tune, but the squirrel went quietly on with his breakfast. I 
wished him “ Good morning,” and asked if he did not think the 
squirrels busy. “Yes,” said he, “I suppose they are, but I 
haven’t seen any.” He did not even turn his head to look. 
Presently a big, bouncing girl came running along, right under 
the tree. Her heavy feet rapped like mallets on the hard frozen 
roadway. The squirrel dropped his breakfast and bolted, went 
straight along at the same height, from branch to branch, to the 
farther side of the plantation, without waiting anywhere for a 
moment. In this way he put eight trees between himself and 
the flying girl in less than a minute. He now resumed his meal, 
quite undisturbed by the loud sound of a woodman’s axe, or the 
louder barking of a woodman’s dog. At the other end of the 
wood, while I was looking intently at some moving foliage in a 
large evergreen fir, my ear caught the familiar patter of prickly 
feet, and just in front of me a little fellow tore down the trunk of 
another large tree and across the open space to the next. 1 had 
now seen seven, and heartily wishing my lively little friends a 
Happy New Year, I sprang into the saddle and turned home to 
breakfast. Early Bird. 
WINTER BELOW BEACHY HEAD. 
INTER below Beachy Head ! The very name suggests 
wild winds and waves and dashing spray. But it is of 
one of those calm, serene winter days that I write, 
days which stand out like jewels in a dull setting, 
when it is a pure joy to be alive, and when, were it not for the 
frosty crispness of the air, the deep blue of sea and sky would 
almost cheat us into the belief that summer had come at last. 
At the end of the long terraced parade, where bath-chairs 
come and go in a mournful procession, and hurdy-gurdies mingle 
their strains with the band, the chalk cliffs begin, rising higher 
and higher till they tower above us like a great white wall. 
Here under their shelter we are so absolutely alone that we 
might be miles away from any dwelling, and the stillness is 
broken only by the gentle lapping of the waves upon the sand. 
One can scarcely realise that this calm sea, with its innocent, 
smiling face, is the cruel monster which only yesterday raged 
and thundered against the rocks. Yet the signs of storm and 
stress are not far to seek. Masses of golden-brown bladder- 
wrack and oar-weed have been uprooted from their bed, and lie 
tangled on the shore, while, strangest sight of all, on either side, 
