258 



WILDFOWL AND THE WEATHER IN MARCH, 1886. 



The mouth of March presented such unexpected and 

 remarkable cHmatic phenomena, attended by an almost un- 

 precedented influx of Avildfowl, that the following account of 

 it may be an interesting record. 



Up to the end of February the winter had been unusually 

 irregular and local in its severity, and the quantity of wild- 

 fowl on our coast considerably less than had been the case 

 for several years. But on the morning of March 1st, we 

 awoke to find a heavy and persistent snowstorm, driving 

 before a south-easterly gale. All that day and the following 

 night the storm and gale continued without intermission. 

 The snow was of that fine dry powdery description which 

 forms the most dangerous drifts, and the morning of the 2nd 

 found us, in the north of England, cut off from communi- 

 cation with the outer world : we had no post, no newspapers, 

 the snow lay piled in huge drifts, and — still worse — there 

 were no signs of abatement. The wind veered to the 

 north-east, but the snowfall continued all that day and 

 night. After nearly forty hours' incessant snowfall, the 

 morning of March 3rd at last broke fine, though the wind 

 still blew strongly. During this time we had been to a 

 great extent deprived of news from outside, each town and 

 village being cut off from its neighbours, and it was onty as 

 communication was gradually restored that we learnt the 

 full extent of the storm. 



As soon as railway communication was partially reopened, 

 I received a letter from my puntsman (on March 6th), 

 telling me of the arrival of the Geese. On the afternoon of 

 March 2nd, he wrote, after some thirty-six hours' incessant 

 snow-blast, the Geese began to appear in thousands. Flight 



