190 MR SRLBY ON THE WINTER OF 1838. 



(Smew), in the adult male plumage, in which state it is considered a 

 rare bird, were killed upon different parts of the coast ; and of Po- 

 diceps rubricollis, far from a common species, I saw several instances. 

 Many specimens of the different colymbi (divers) were also shot, and 

 wild -ducks, widgeons, brent- geese, scaup-ducks, pochards, tufted-ducks, 

 and golden-eyes, were very plentiful. Upon the southern coasts 

 of England an equal or even greater influx of water-fowl took place, 

 and the destruction, as may be conceived, was comparatively great. 

 Jn Hampshire, I am informed, that a noble sportsman, who rented a 

 small part of the coast expressly for the shooting of wild-fowl, killed 

 during the storm, the extraordinary number of 515 head of various kinds, 

 among which were thirty-seven swans. This warfare upon the aquatic 

 tribe continued for six or seven weeks, and it was not till the middle or 

 latter end of March, that the wild-fowl began to shift their quarters, or 

 yield to that influence which directs their migratory movements to the 

 higher latitudes on the first approach of spring. Before a thaw took 

 place, many of our hardy indigenous and resident land birds also suffered 

 from the intensity of the frost and the want of food ; partridges and 

 pheasants were found dead in every direction, and even the hardy muir- 

 fowl upon the higher grounds were many of them frozen to death. In 

 Edinburgh, I am informed, that for weeks, after the first ten days of the 

 storm, baskets full of partridges and other game were brought to the 

 poulterers, which had died or had been caught in a dying state, and 

 when taken into the hand were found so reduced as to be a mere collec- 

 tion of bones and feathers. Four-footed game also did not escape with 

 impunity, and during a great part of the storm, their only food, in this 

 district, was the bark and twigs of such underwood and young trees as 

 appeared above the snow. But it was not in those districts alone in 

 which the snow lay deep upon the surface, that animal life suffered from 

 the severity of the season, for I find that in Dumfriesshire and other parts 

 along the western coast where the fall of snow was very trifling, and 

 scarce whitened the surface, great mortality nevertheless prevailed 

 amongst the feathered race, all access to food having been as effectually 

 prevented by the stony hardness of the earth, as it was where the hoary 

 covering hid every thing from view. 



We now turn to the effects of the frost upon the vegetable fibre, and here 

 we find evidences of its intensity equally striking, and as fatally injurious 

 to certain plants, as it was to animal life. In this district its severity was 

 plainly demonstrated by the appearance of our hardy native, the common 

 whin ; this shrub, wherever fully exposed, or in so far as it remained un- 

 covered by the snow, was completely destroyed, for a proof of which I have 

 only to evidence its unsightly appearance at the present moment. The 

 common bay and Portugal laurels also suffered severely whenever exposed 

 to the south-east blast, and many of them still remain in a dubious state of 

 existence. The laurustinus, which had flowered and grown luxuriantly for 



