Animals have a reputation as weather prophets—if their prophecies strike the human observer as somewhat obvious. The cat washes her face, and this is commonly held to be a sign of coming rain; in summer it is thought to be a sign of a thunder-storm when cats are remarkably lively. Dogs sometimes bury their bones when rain is in the air—perhaps an inherited instinct to save food against days of bad hunting. Horses by stretching their necks and sniffing the air seem to be scenting distant rain; and donkeys have a way of braying before the storm. Shepherds hold that if sheep turn their tails windward rain will come; and cowherds read the same prophecy when a herd of cows gathers at one end of a pasture, their tails to the wind. Changes in weather mean much to wild life, and we are prepared to believe they are forewarned. A storm may mean the loss of a meal to a fox, a ruined nest to a bird, an end of all things to an insect. The fox has done well that has eaten heartily before the storm. Yet it appears that a change of weather must be near at hand before wild creatures take notice. The pheasant crows before the thunder-storm because he hears distant thunder. The wheatear, a bird nervous of clouds, flies to shelter as the cloud drives up. It is the first touch of cold weather that sets squirrels hiding nuts.
Weather has a marked effect on the moods of wild creatures. There are days when hares or partridges seem overcome by oppression; they move listlessly if disturbed, and lie or sit about as though all energy had gone from them. Thunder in the air may be the cause, or perhaps snow is coming; when the storm has blown over, liveliness is restored, and new life inspires all things. Before a storm, partridges in the stubble-fields set up their feathers, and in cold weather the feathers of many birds have the appearance of being puffed out, so that they look almost twice their usual size. Many creatures feed at an unusually early hour if storms are coming. It is a bad sign when rabbits are out feeding in the fields early on a bright sunshiny afternoon. The birds of the open fields—rooks, starlings, pigeons, or fieldfares—feed hungrily and hastily while rain-clouds overshadow the sky; but it is a sign of good weather when rooks fly to feed far from their roosting-trees, and fly high. Cock pheasants will go to roost early before the storm, choosing low branches, and trees that afford good protection. In bitter weather, even the warm feathers of birds may become ice-bound.
Green Winters
Between a green and a white winter in England there is a world of difference to wild creatures. There may come day upon day, week upon week, of mist, rain, fog, and blustering winds, of hail, sleet, and furious snow-blizzards—to birds and beasts these are days of prosperity and fatness. Peewits, snipe, woodcock, blackbirds, and thrushes then find food far more plentiful than in the hot dusty days of late summer. Often, in late summer, their breasts are narrowed by leanness to the shape of a boat's keel. But in moist, warm winter days the flesh rises roundly as if it would burst the skin—the breast-bone, no longer up-standing like a bare ridge, is buried almost out of sight in a valley of fat, on the thighs are little hillocks of fat, and the bones of the back cannot be seen or felt for their thick warm covering. But should there come two or three days of frost, which hold through the day and increase their grip on the land by night, then this loaded store of fat vanishes as mist before the sun.
What Rainy Days bring
A mild open autumn and a green winter also mean much to the farmers and to the gamekeepers; a blessing on many accounts, a curse on others. The farmer groans because his land is so wet and heavy that he cannot sow his winter seeds; the keeper sees the ruination of many a promising day's sport. The keeper gains when there are no frost and snow by having the pleasure of showing bills for corn reduced to a minimum—in a mild winter he will not need half the amount of corn that must be distributed to his birds in hard weather, when they are actually in need of food. What little he gives them in open weather is to keep them together, as natural food is abundant. But a low bill for corn hardly compensates the keeper for rain-spoiled sport, or for day after day of outdoor work in the wet. The work cannot be done in a way to satisfy the keeper—or possibly others. And the rain means that he falls behind with that everlasting tax on his time entailed by keeping rabbits within bounds. After a mild, open winter, by the time the game-shooting season is ended, and coverts are available for rabbit-killing, young rabbits have already made their appearance. The keeper welcomes a short spell of really hard weather in February, so that he may the more easily catch up all the pheasants he needs for penning. Otherwise the kind of winter that best suits him is a dry one—without hard frost.