HE IS SITTING AND EATING HIS DINNER AT THE FOOT OF HIS FAVOURITE OAK _To face page_ 212 TAIL-PIECE TO “THE OWLS’ REVENGE” _Page_ 239 TALES OF THE BIRDS. A WINTER’S TALE. There is a certain quiet bit of land, just where two midland counties meet, that is in winter a favourite resort of the fieldfares. There they find all they need--the hedges are usually bright with hips, and with the darker crimson berries of the hawthorn; the fields are all pasture-meadows, and the grass is tufty and full of insects; a little stream winds snake-like through the fields, hidden by an overarching growth of briar and bramble. No well-worn path crosses these meadows, and you may count on being undisturbed if you sit for a few minutes, to enjoy the winter sunshine and watch the shy birds, on the bole of one of the scattered elms that shelter the cows in summer. The fieldfares are in clover here: they get food, drink, sunshine when there is any, and above all the solitude they so deeply love. In other parts of the district you may see them, or you may not, for they move about and show their handsome forms and slaty backs, now here, now there; but in this favoured haunt some are always to be seen, and set up their loud call-note from elm or hedgetop as soon as your intruding form is seen moving in their direction. One autumn there had been but a poor crop of berries; and by the time the fieldfares arrived in middle England the blackbirds and missel-thrushes had already rifled the hedges of much of their fruit. But up to the middle of January enough remained to feed the usual number of visitors, and when once January is past, they may hope for open weather and a plentiful supply of grubs and worms to help them out. During the third week in that wintry month, the sun shone bright and warm, though the fields were covered with hoar frost at night; no thought of trouble entered the hearts of the birds; in the middle of the day you might even have heard them uttering a faint kind of song from the hedge-top over the brook, as the genial sun warmed them and bade them think of the spring that was surely coming. But the frost went on, day by day; and now the blue sky was covered with dull cloud, driven before a bitter north-east wind, so that the sun could no longer melt the hard-bound meadows with his midday glow. The fieldfares found themselves quite alone. The redwings had gone to the neighbourhood of the towns and villages, and so too had the robins and wrens, who had lived in the hedges all the winter through till now. The rooks and starlings were in the ploughed fields, and searching even there almost in vain for food. A chance crow or magpie was all the company they had for several days together; and crows and magpies are not always agreeable neighbours.