My Nature Notebook

a winter it has been so far, for the holly berries are the emergency rations of the birds. They will plunder the rowan tree of its flat bunches of scarlet- orange fruit in summery autumn, gobbling them so , wastefully, too, that three berries are scattered on the ground for every one that is eaten. The berries of the elder are scarcely allowed to show purple before they are incontinently swallowed by the gabbling starlings and jarring missel-thrushes that scramble and tumble all day long among the elders yielding twigs. But the holly is held in reserve, not by mutual consent, for there is no mutuality in bird- dom, where each thrives upon its neighbours mis- fortunes, but because the berries have little attraction, in spite of the urgent invitation of their colour. So in a mild season the holly may carry its berries till the next summer but in this winter the birds hard times had reached the holly-eating stage just two days before Christmas. JANUARY. The result was rather curious in different parishes. In some the emissaries and helpers of the parsons had taken the field betimes and collected stores of berried holly for the church two days beforehand. In others, where reliance was placed upon supplies contributed by parishioners, the birds were before- hand with the hollygatherers, and many a tree which had flamed with scarlet on the previous day had been stripped of the last glint of a berry between dawn and breakfast-time. And, after all, the holly fulfils its function better in feeding the birds than in decorating even sacred masonry for, like almost all thorny or prickly trees, it proclaims its dependence upon the birds by the very arrangement of its defences. . So high as cattle can reach, its twisted spiky leaves present their bayonets at every angle against all corners but at a higher level, where most of the berries cluster and the birds are welcome, the leaves grow straight and spikeless. The haw- thorn exhibits the same choice of guests in a great measure but you see this best, perhaps, in other - lands, as in India, where the babool tree is thornless in the upper branches, on which the weaver-birds hang their swinging bottle-nests, but below, as high as camels can reach, it carries a formidable armature of two-inch thorns. MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. Since the birds had eaten up their reserve of food before the New Year-for there was hardly a berry left even upon the hawthorns-one did not like to contemplate their fate, if really hard weather should come later. Luckily, there were very few redwings with us...