70 PONDS, PADDOCKS, AND AVIARIES 



" I have a beautiful white-necked crane alive here, 

 Grus leucauchen from Japan, and at Lilford one of the still 

 more rare hooded cranes {Grus monachus) from the same 

 country, the second that has come to Europe alive." ' 



" January isl, 1891. 



" We have had, and are still having, the most 

 severe spell of frost and snow that I ever remember, 

 the temperature varying from 10° to 26" of frost at 

 night for the last three weeks, and on several occa- 

 sions as low as 20° at noon. This will no doubt 

 account for your wigeon, and probably for the large 

 migration of buzzards also. I seldom read of more cold- 

 blooded atrocity than what you tell me of the ancient 

 Canarian and the sitting partridges. 



" My birds have been suffering dreadfully during the 

 long frost, but, curiously enough, it is the northern birds 

 that have suffered the most. 1 have lost four snowy 

 owls, and have no male bird left. My nutcrackers are 

 dying daily, yet all the Canarian survivors are flourishing. 

 One of the laurels * has paired with a Bolle male and laid 

 two eggs ; one was broken, but she now sits assiduously 



1 To E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, Esq. 



* Canarian Laurel Dove {Columba laurivora), a very fine wood- 

 pigeon, found only in certain very precipitous forests in the islands 

 of Gomera and La Palma (Canaries). It differs much from the true 

 Wood Pigeon in its habit of spending most of its time on the ground. 

 Its food consist principally of the fruit of the Til-tree {Orsodaphnce 

 fxtens) and the vinatigo (JPersea indka). 



