Their ordinary holes, which are half, and sometimes
quite, under water, will not do for winter; they would be frozen in
them, and perhaps their store of food would be spoiled; besides which
the floods cause the stream to rise above its banks, and they could not
exist under water for weeks together.
Still further down, where the wood ends in scattered bushes and
withy-beds, the level shore of the shallow mere succeeds. The once soft,
oozy ground is now firm; the rushes are frozen stiff, and the ice for
some distance out is darkened by the aquatic weeds frozen in it. From
here the wood, rising up the slope, comes into view at once--the dark
trees, the ash poles, the distant beeches, the white crest of the
hill--all still and calm under the moonlight. The level white plain of
ice behind stretches away, its real extent concealed by the islands of
withy and the dark pines along the distant shore; while elsewhere the
ice is not distinguishable from the almost equally level fields that
join it. Looking now more closely on the snow, the tracks of hares and
rabbits that have crossed and recrossed the ice are visible.
In passing close to the withy-beds to return to the wood some branches
have to be pushed aside and cause a slight noise. Immediately a crowd of
birds rise out of the withies, where they have been roosting, and
scatter into the night. They are redwings and thrushes; every withy-bed
is full of them.
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