WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
was unsuitable. The redwing selected a leafless 
thorn-tree, and huddled there in silence. In 
size and manners Shacaim is a very thrush 
the buff phylactery over either brow, and the 
rusty stain under the wing hall-mark him as 
apart from the throstle ; but he has the throstle's 
lack of assertion and love of secret, leaf-strewn 
places. Therefore he only chirped in feeble 
expostulation when he was jostled off his perch, 
and he and his kind added little to the clamour 
of the woods. Even when the sunset reflections 
had faded, and the vast silence of fallen snow 
settled on the countryside, the birds still kept 
up a drowsy undercurrent of recrimination, for 
perches were at a premium in Coolnabrock 
that night. 
The multitude woke at dawn, but there was no 
rest for them. The snow was firmly welded to 
the branches, and there was no grass to be seen. 
The misselthrushes went out to the open 
country to join the fieldfares in the haw hedges, 
but the redwings remained in the woods, for 
berries were not so much to their liking as 
insect food. Shacaim followed the river where 
it winds among barren jungles of woodrush 
and rhododendron, until he came to a little 
stream which broke the bank under an oak-tree. 
It flowed from a tangle of brambles and woolly 
clematis; and because a redwing dearly loves 
142 
