If by any chance the ice gets broken or upturned, these white bands are seen to be caused by flanges projecting from the under surface, almost like stands.

They are sometimes connected in such a way that the parallel flanges appear like the letter 'h' with the two down-strokes much prolonged.

In the morning the chalky rubble brought from the pits upon the Downs and used for mending gateways leading into the fields glistens brightly.

Upon the surface of each piece of rubble there adheres a thin coating of ice: if this be lightly struck it falls off, and with it a flake of the chalk.
As it melts, too, the chalk splits and crumbles; and thus in an ordinary gateway the same process may be seen that disintegrates the most majestic cliff.
The stubbles--those that still remain--are full of linnets, upon which the mouching fowler preys in the late autumn.

And when at the end of January the occasional sunbeams give some faint hope of spring, he wanders through the lanes carrying a decoy bird in a darkened cage, and a few boughs of privet studded with black berries and bound round with rushes for the convenience of handling.
The female yellow-hammers, whose hues are not so brilliant as those of the male birds, seem as winter approaches to flock together, and roam the hedges and stubble fields in bevies.