a vast quantity of thistle-heads, poppy-pods, campion, columbine, and all sorts of other plants and flowers that have been garnered in with the harvest. Small birds come down on this in flocks, and where the slope of the heap on one side joins the stack, one should make in the latter, by a process of pulling out and pressing in, a nice cosy cavern just big enough to squeeze into. On the floor of this one should lay a shawl or plaid, and then, enveloping oneself in another, enter it backwards, and, kicking one's legs farther into the body of the stack so as to be out of the way, pull down the straw over the aperture, arranging it thinly just in front of one's face so as to have a good outlook. Even on the coldest morning one is warm and comfortable under such circumstances, and the snow without and frosted stalks that one's near breath is thawing, make one feel all the warmer. It is for warmth, indeed, that such an ensconcement is principally needed, for on days like this small birds, at any rate, will come within a few paces of one, if only one sits still. Even when one walks up to the stack in broad daylight, they only fly round to another side of it, and one has scarcely settled oneself before they begin to come again. But hidden thus before "black night" has ceased to "steal the colours from things," one may have stragglers from the main crowd within the length of one's arm, and I have even tried catching one—for the bizarrerie of the thing—by gliding my hand stealthily through the loose straw underneath it. The attempt failed, but I believe such a feat would be quite possible.
As the light begins to creep upon the darkness and the world to grow more and more white, the arrivals
