NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 1 29 



Glaucous Gull. I suppose they all went further south, looking for 

 a warmer climate." 



A theory was started to account for the unusual severity of the 

 winter. The hot summer of 1878 is supposed to have loosened an 

 unusually large quantity of polar ice, which floated further south 

 than in ordinary seasons. This affected the atmosphere, and, 

 making it colder, the reaction upon the floating ice prevented it 

 from melting as soon as is usually the case. The unusually early 

 migration of birds, and the haste with which they passed, favour 

 the opinion that winter had set in unusually early in the north of 

 Europe. Even as late as March, 1879, vessels were beset and 

 damaged by icebergs off the mouth of the Gothenburg river and 

 seaward. The Marjory was holed on the starboard bow by an 

 iceberg, and the Frithjof, from Gothenburg, on arrival at Granton, 

 reported that she had been much detained by icebergs in the river 

 and at sea {Edinburgh Courant, March 18th, 1879). 



We are not prepared to take up this as the natural cause of the 

 severe winter, nor to enter into the deeper considerations of the 

 eccentricity of the earth's orbit and deflection of the Gulf Stream. 

 It will be quite sufficient to chronicle the facts without dipping 

 into the speculative part of the subject. The ease with which 

 Arctic expeditions penetrated to Franz Josef Land, and made the 

 Xorth-east Passage (Nordenskjiild), also indicates an unusual 

 loosening of Arctic ice ; and the fact of an unusually tine summer 

 in Iceland in 1879, and an extremely wet one in Great Britain, 

 appears also confirmatory of similar causes and effects.* 



* The following are among many similar reports from other parts of Europe, 

 illustrating the effect of the severe weather, which it would be almost an 

 endless task to collect and arrange with any hope of completeness : — 

 "The Hard Winter and the Wild Fowl. — The Geneva correspondent of 

 the Times -writes: — The severity of the weather has brought immense flocks 

 of Wild Ducks into the Val de Travers, where the streams, rich in trout, 

 remain unfrozen owing to the sheltered position of the valley. To make 

 head against the invasion and prevent the extermination of the fish, the 

 Government of Neuchatel have prolonged the shooting season, which had 

 already expired, for eight days. Another interesting fact in natural history 

 is the unwonted presence at Geneva of thousands of Lake Gulls. They 

 fly all day long in the neighbourhood of the Pont du Mont Blanc, 

 disputing with the Swans the bread thrown by visitors into the river. 

 The home of these graceful birds is among the rocks on the Savoyard 

 side of the lake, and on their arrival here two months ago they were 



