200 A REMARKABLE MAY SNOW-STORM. 



A handsome cock Whinchat had been brought to me starved to death, and 

 numbers of eggs were found cold in the deserted nests. To my great surprise^ 

 on passing down the fields to the Old Mill, I found the birds were neither 

 chilled into torpitude, nor voiceless. The Tree Pipit, Green Linnet, and 

 Storm Cock were singing merrily about the gardens and fields. The snow 

 was fast melting away from the neighbouring slopes, but laid white and cold 

 on the distant hills, there having been a partial frost during both nights after 

 the snow. An unusually large flood had filled the Dearne valley. The water 

 still covered the Fleets like a miniature lake. Eooks, Sky-larks, Meadow 

 Pipits, Swallows, and Thrushes, were flying over the waters, or picking up 

 insects or worms on patches which the flood had left. On the near bushes, 

 the Whinchat, the Sedge Warbler, the Willow Wren, and the Jenny Wren 

 were singing merrily; and in the Clifi" wood, lower down, the Blackbird, the 

 Whitethroat, and the Blackcap were tuning their mellow pipes, as if no 

 unseasonable visitation had, but a few hours before, taken place, leaving its 

 traces still on the fresh leaves and blossoms of spring. 



5th. month, 16th. — I accompanied the temperanca procession to Stainbro' Park. 

 The visitors were, as usual, not numerous in the fore part of the day; but 

 before evening, were estimated at fifteen hundred to two thousand. The amount 

 taken at the gates, at the small admission fee, was near ^15, leaving a profit 

 of £7 clear towards the beneficent object of the society. The day was as fine 

 as could be desired for this exhilarating and rational mode of spending Whitsuix 

 holidays. In sad contrast to this genial weather and the budding promises of 

 summer, were the devastating traces of the late heavy snow-storm. The fine 

 beech trees we had so admired the week before — one below the canal, partially 

 leaved, and the one a little beyond the bridge, which we had contemplated 

 as a perfect model of this noble tree, so ample in bulk, the trunk being about 

 twelve feet in diameter, and so graceful in the proportion of its bold leafy 

 branches — exhibited now a sad wreck of their former beauty and stateliness. 



In taking the round of the park to preserve order amongst the irregulars 

 always mingling in such companies, restraining the juveniles from pelting the 

 Swans or running the timid Hares and Deer, I found constant traces of the 

 devastating storm. The branches of many trees of the rookeries in the me- 

 nagerie, and amid the tall oaks near Queen Anne's Lodge, were broken down 

 by the weight of snow, increased by the quantity of nests they supported. 

 In many cases, the branches, nests, and young birds had come down in a 

 confused mass. The ravages made on the trees near the gamekeeper's cottage 

 were still greater; but this was said to be nothing to the destruction experi- 

 enced in the woods about Rockley. The splendid avenues of beeches, the 

 admiration of all beholders, had many of their finest branches— some of them 

 comparable to trees in themselves — fairly borne down on all sides by the 

 suoerincumbent masses of snow. It was, therefore, with feelings of pain and 

 pleasure that the diversified scenes of this fine park were surveyed on that 

 day — pain at the devastation produced by one day's snow — ^pleasure in the 



