WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
plover, wisps of snipe and hungry duck and 
teal. It was almost dark by then, but 
Creaman, roaming aimlessly through the snow- 
storm, felt the presence of trees below him, 
and by good luck he dropped into Garrybrack. 
The water stood unfrozen in the hollow 
where the Man had shot at him the morning 
after his arrival, and the place was crowded 
with woodcock. It was too dark to see 
them, but he heard the rustle of leaves where 
they worked, and the soft squelch of their 
bills in the mud. But they took little 
enough for their pains two torpid worms, or 
maybe three, were all that rewarded them. The 
snow ceased at midnight ; and then the ground 
froze hard, and the water was darned across 
with ice needles so thickly that the birds could 
no longer wash their bills. From the pool the 
ground sloped up to the hedge, and there 
Creaman crouched wakefully till morning. 
Then the wren found him. 
The hedge is hollow with old rabbit holes, and 
so thin that a man can creep through it any- 
where. It is a lonely place and damp, with little 
to commend it to fur or feather, but, such as it 
is, it belongs to Droleen the Wren. Droleen was 
mateless at that time, a fussy cocktailed bachelor. 
He owned twenty perches length of the hedge- 
row, and took care that nothing from a man to 
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