336 Mr. Sclby on the effects produced upon Animal 



now in the possession of our brother member, Mr. H. Embleton. 

 Several specimens also of the Mergus albellus (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 Podiceps rubricollis, far 

 from a common species, I saw several instances. Many specimens 

 of the different Colymbi (Divers) were also shot, and wild-ducks, 

 wigeons, brent-geese, scaup-ducks, pochards, tufted-ducks, and 

 golden-eyes were very plentiful. Upon the southern coasts of En- 

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

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

 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 mi- 

 gratory 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 poul- 

 terers, 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 

 w T ith 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 Dumfries- 

 shire 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 everything 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 ex- 



