That is what Mr. Ebblethwaite did. For me it was to "say something," and I have now said it.
Doing and saying comes to pretty much the same thing; at all events I have on this occasion kept Ruskin's words in mind concerning the futility of prodding and scratching at that thick insensible crust which lies above the impressible part in men unless we come through with a deep thrust somewhere.
The majority may hate me for having followed this counsel, but there will be one or two here and there who will applaud my courage for having spoken in this book of the ugly things as well as of the things which flatter. And I will add--in no boastful spirit, Heaven knows--that what I have written will not be forgotten to-morrow, nor next year, nor the year after, but will be read some day, with a sense of shame, I trust, by the children of the very men who could do something and that now, but who refuse to listen to me and others, or listen coldly, when we plead for the birds. I refer to the landlords, who are absent or else shut up and inaccessible in their houses where they see nothing and hear nothing; the local editors; the ministers of religion (God save the mark!); and, above all, the authorities, and county and borough councillors and magistrates. They are all very careful of their "position" and their "reputation" and cannot afford to and dare not denounce or interfere with these old pastimes or customs of the people, to which they are attached and upon which they look as a right.
_A second wave of cold--Migrating goldfinches--Increase in number of wintering birds--Beginning of the frost--At Zennor--Feeding the birds under difficulties--A crippled robin--Crystal fruit--Prowess of a fox--Fox and raven--The foxes' larder--Migrating ravens--Frosted window panes--Starving birds--Starlings going to roost--Evening on Zennor Hill--Heath fires--The windy night--Animism and personifications of nature--The end of the frost._
|THERE was no second westward movement of birds in the winter of 1906-7, although another and more intense spell of cold weather occurred a month after the one described in the last chapter. It looked as if the birds had exhausted their powers in their long disastrous flight to and from the Land's End, or that some saving instinct had failed to come to them on this occasion. Doubtless many thousands had perished in that journey over a snow-covered country to the extremity of Cornwall, and we may suppose that when the weather moderated the surviving millions redistributed themselves over the southern counties from Somerset to Kent; also that many birds had been continually slipping away across the Channel. Many of our migrants, which have not a strict migration like the swallow and cuckoo, the species which shift their quarters or of which considerable numbers remain in this country throughout the year, do annually come down in batches to the south and remain for a month or so, in some cases until December, then vanish, and these no doubt continue their journey over the sea. Thus, every autumn there is a migration of goldfinches into Cornwall, many birds appearing in the neighbourhood of Mount's Bay in September and remaining until November. These goldfinches have a brighter plumage than those which winter in England, and appear to form a body or race distinct from the earlier migrants having their own seasons and perhaps a route of their own.