Up in the great beeches the rooks are still and silent; sometimes the boughs are encrusted with rime about their very claws.
Leaving the oak now and skirting the wood, after a while the meadows on the lower ground are reached; and here perhaps the slight scampering sound of a rabbit may be heard.

But as they can see and hear you so far in the bright light and silence, they will most likely be gone before you can get near.

They are restless--very restless; first because of the snow, and next because of the moonlight.

The hares, unable to find anything on the hills or the level white plain above, have come down here and search along the sheltered hedgerows for leaf and blade.
To-night the rabbits will run almost like the hares, to and fro, hither and thither.
In the thickest hawthorns the blackbirds and lesser feathered creatures are roosting, preferring the hedgerow to the more open wood.

Some of the lesser birds have crept into the ivy around the elms, and which crowns the tops of the withy pollards.