CHAPTER XII.

WINTER SHIFTS.

THE wind, in long-drawn sighs, has passed over the uplands, and died away in the hollows at the foot of the hills. A long low line of cloud has hung for days in the south-west, lifting slightly from time to time, to settle again as before. This belt of clouds reaches for miles. There is a break in it now and again, caused by wind rushing up fitfully from the sea, far away beyond the hills; but it is only for a short spell, then the cloud-line is continuous again. The ponies, rough and longmaned, are moving noiselessly with unshod hoofs to certain hollows well known to themselves, where they will stand sheltered and warm as if they were stabled under the thick hollies. Rough-fleeced

sheep as well as ponies have taken the notion into their heads that white weather is coming. The sheep, also, are making tracks, but in a different direction from the ponies. Their food is the same, but their habits and their choice of shelter are very different.

Wildfowl in companies of three and two, far apart, rush overhead, high up, to certain points and back again,-wild ducks they are, so far as we are able to determine from their flight. Where the mast lies in profusion the birds are very busy on and under the fallen leaves. Wood-pigeons, especially, are filling their crops in most business-like fashion. There is no playing about,-no rushing up to the tree-tops to spread wings and tails and to trim their feathers; all that they are bent on now is to stow away a good crop of food before the snow comes and covers it in. They will still be able to get something to eat when that happens, but it will be under difficulties, for the birds will have to plough the snow off with their broad breasts,—unless it lies too thickly for them to do this, and to flirt it to right and left of them in white powdery puffs. A large number of wild pigeons marching along on the

feed, under these circumstances, may fairly be compared to feathered snow-ploughs. It does not take long to clear a space wherein to forage. The jays, for a wonder, flit quietly from one tree or berry-bearing bush to another, too busy to squawk unless you frighten one out of its wits by quietly coming on him from behind some clump of bushes, as he is stocking away among the fallen leaves. In such case he is seriously alarmed, and makes a tremendous noise over it. The green woodpecker is just as busy as the rest, only after a different method. Something

-his instinct we say, for want of a better term wherewith to describe a bird's faculties-tells him that after the sumptuous living he has enjoyed through the spring, summer, and early part of the autumn, ants or their eggs are essentially necessary to his wellbeing, to tone things down a bit, possibly. For the yaffle is positively plump just now. To procure pupæ in a more or less advanced stage of development, he leaves this belt of silver-grey beechwoods and frequents the outskirts, where are open spaces covered with fine grass and ant-hills, well studded with gnarled old thorn-trees, both black and white thorn, covered with moss and lichens. You

will be pretty certain to find him, if you know how to look for him, scuttling round some ant-hill: no deserted one, though,—he knows better than that.

There he is! the yellow patch on the lower part of his back betrayed him as he scuttled round, and he is continually on the scuttle. Up he pokes his long stout bill and a part of his head from the side of the ant-hill that is farthest from us, a comical bird, truly. He is listening to find out, if he can, what that suspicious rustle was that he heard just now. He is not quite satisfied, and presently he dives into the ferns at the stem of one of the old thorns, a little farther away. Being well acquainted with his antics, we look at once at the middle of the tree, and there we have him, his head twisted round the stem, looking in our direction. My glass is full on him, and he appears a most extraordinary fellow as he raises the crimson feathers of his head and lets them fall again, the head well on the slant, -a red-capped, long-nosed, feathered harlequin. On examining the ant-hill on which he has been so busy, we find he has excavated into it sideways— driven tunnels, in fact. There has been no waste of labour; he has gone straight for the emmets

and their domestic offices. Probably the insects and their eggs have, as I have already suggested, a corrective property which is fully appreciated by the yaffle, and he means to have his fill of them. before the snow comes.

On the broad roads, or rides, cleared in the beech-woods, where the wind, to a certain extent, keeps the leaves from gathering thickly, large flocks of chaffinches and tits gather: from the great tit to the little blue tit, all are busy at the fallen mast. There is a continual twink! twink! twink! As to the tits, they chide and chatter; and mingled with them you will find the beautiful bramblings, or bramble finches, conspicuous at once, as they fly up, by their white tail-coverts, as well as by their scissors-grinding note. I kept a pair of these once for a time, but had to give them their liberty or they would have ground us out of the house. thing is very noticeable about all birds that have luxuriated on beech-mast for a long spell,—their plumage gets the gloss of satin on it, doubtless owing to the great amount of oil in the nuts. A woodland friend brought me a couple once for preserving: they were skinned with the greatest diffi

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