Looking down into the meadow as soon as my eyes were thoroughly open, I instantly noticed a covey of young partridges a little way up beside the hedge among the molehills.

The neighbourhood of those hillocks has an attraction for many birds, especially in winter.

Then fieldfares, redwings, starlings, and others prefer the meadows that are dotted with them.

In a frost if you see a thrush on a molehill it is very likely to thaw shortly.

Moles seem to feel the least change in the temperature of the earth; if it slackens they begin to labour, and cast up, unwittingly, food for the thrushes.
It would have been easy to kill three or four of the covey, which was a small one, at a single shot; but it had been a late summer, and they were not full-grown.