on the Long-tailed Tit. 197


such a winter of destruction. The winter of 1881 cannot be compared

to it.


I think it was in 1895 that we had quite six weeks’ frost, and

skating was enjoyed on the Thames for a long time, the destruction

to vegetation and bird life was not to be compared to that of this,

winter.


The cause this winter was through the very strong easterly

gales accompanied by thirty degrees of frost; it penetrated every¬

thing.


I have seen in this neighbourhood since the weather has been

milder whole commons even of furze turned brown and the bigger

part of it dead, holly trees and laurels killed or withered up on the

easterly side.


Blackberry leaves that are mostly green during the winter

are everywhere on hedges or in woods, hanging limp and of a sickly

brown shade, as if they had had a poisonous gas blown over them.


During March I have been many miles round this neigh¬

bourhood (Beading) both in Berks and Oxon. I have visited scores-

of places where in ordinary times it was a common thing for me to

see flocks of Long-tailed Tits, but I have not heard nor seen any, and

I don’t know anyone about here that has ; they all tell me they

have not.


It is not a case of a few being killed, but I am convinced that

every Long-tailed Tit has been killed, at any rate, in this neighbour¬

hood.


These birds do not roost in holes or old nests like Jenny

Wrens, or other species of tits, but always on an open bough.


They search for food from daylight to dusk. I once saw a

flock shoot down when nearly dark into a leafless hazel-nut bush in

winter time. I was standing within a short distance of them, and it

was very interesting to watch them go to roost.


They were on various parts of the bush and were busy for a

short time preening their feathers; then a few settled side by side on

the bough, and one by one the others joined them ; the outside ones

kept jumping on the centre ones and wriggling down between them

for the warmest place until darkness set in.


It will be easily seen how the intense cold easterly gale killed



