412 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



there occurred successions of heavy snowfalls, alternating 

 with partial thaws and renewal of frost, this causing" the 

 half-melted snow to freeze again into a crust so hard that 

 neither sheep nor grouse could reach their food. The 

 hill-farmers were at their wits' end, and local papers 

 almost daily contained reports of the occurrence of grouse 

 and other moor-birds in most unusual localities, very 

 many miles from their accustomed haunts. Such phe- 

 nomena are similar to what occurred in the severe winter 

 of 1 880- 1 and some former years; but hitherto only in 

 winters of universal severity, and are remarkable in 

 a season of such sporadic intensity as that under 

 notice. 



On the coast, on the other hand, there was little or no 

 severe weather ; what frost there was seldom lasting more 

 than a few days, insufficient either to bring over fowl in 

 any quantities, or to "tame" them when here. Towards 

 the end of January, I spent three days and nights aboard 

 my gunning-punt. The numbers of brent geese this year 

 I estimated at only one-twentieth of what we have in hard 

 winters, and considerably less than I recollected seeing in 

 any former year. I must guard myself against appearing 

 to infer that the state of the winter here is the sole factor 

 in influencing the quantities of wildfowl which migrate 

 hither at this season. It is merely a reflex : their move- 

 ments being regulated exclusively by the state of the 

 winter and extent of ice in Northern Europe, and but 

 little, if at all, by our local conditions, as was demon- 

 strated a few weeks later, and is recorded in the succeed- 

 ing chapter. Inferentially, the winter must have been 

 unusually open farther north, though I had no direct 

 means of knowing. 



Mallard and wigeon being fairly plentiful, offered the 



