WHOOPEK. 47 



and March; and this was also the case in 1860-61, 

 when a severe frost, lasting with httle intermission 

 from December to the end of the following February, 

 brought great numbers of wild swans and other fowl to 

 our shores ; though from the broads and other inland 

 waters being early frozen over, they were chiefly confined 

 to the coast and salt-marshes, or passed on further 

 to the south. The return of these fine birds in spring, 

 on their passage northward, is occasionally remarked, of 

 which an instance occurred in the first week of March, 

 1861, when, the weather at the time being mild and open, 

 a " herd " of twelve were seen to alight early in the 

 morning on the open water of "Bargate," at the entrance 

 to Surlingham Broad ; but being disturbed later in the 

 day they again took wing and quitted the neighbour- 

 hood altogether. In January, 1864, and again in the 

 winter of 1869-70, several were shot in this county, but 

 for the last twenty years at least there has been no 

 such season for whoopers as that of 1870-71, when the 

 hard weather of that memorable winter commenced with 

 a heavy fall of snow on the 20th of December, increasing 

 day by day until it was over a foot deep on the level. 

 The frost was so intense that the thermometer, even by 

 day, registered only a few degrees above zero, and this 

 lasted with but little abatement up to the 12th or 13th of 

 January. A rapid thaw on the 14th, cleared the ground 

 of most of the first fall of snow, and though frosts con- 

 tinued at night the weather moderated considerably up 

 to the 28th, when the snow again fell heavily, and the 

 broads and smaller streams were thickly ice-bound up to 

 the first week in February. My first notice of wild 

 swans in that season was an intimation from Mr. 

 Anthony Hamond that in the last week of December 

 he had seen a " herd " of forty passing along the coast 

 at Horsey, near Yarmouth ; and during the first week 

 in January a flock of twenty-six were observed on one 



