50 Transactions. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFECTS OF THE WEATHER, 

 OF THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS UPON ANIMAL 

 LIFE. By Robert Service. 



Read November 7th, 1879. 



Mr Buchan, Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, 

 in a paper read before his Society on March 7th, 1879, stated 

 that " The parts of the British Islands where the cold last 

 December was severest was in Dumfriesshire, Cumberland, and part 

 of Kirkcudbrightshire, where the mean temperature was 28°, which 

 was 13° below the average : they had had no previous approach to 

 that, so far as they had had observations made with thermometers 

 in Scotland for 115 years. In the month of January they had a 

 state of things somewhat similar, the month being the coldest 

 January of which they had any record in Scotland. In February 

 the cold still continued in a modified form, the mean being 40° — 

 5° below the average. Taking Dumfriesshire, and comparing 

 these three months, the mean was 9° below the average of the last 

 115 years." 



After a period of such extreme low temperature, it became 

 very interesting to trace its effects upon animal life. The Fauna 

 of our district — that part of the country where, according to the 

 statement I have quoted, the cold was the most intense — has 

 indeed been greatly disarranged. In some respects the pleasure 

 of becoming acquainted with and seeing in a state of nature, or in 

 greater numbers than before, certain species which were previously 

 scarce or altogether absent, was very desirable ; but, on the other 

 hand, it was sad to see the ravages made in the ranks of so many 

 of our resident birds and animals. During the past twelve months 

 I have endeavoured by my own observations, and by means of 

 correspondence with other observers residing in different parts of 

 Dumfriesshire and the Stewartry, to gain as much information as 

 possible as to the effects of the long-continued cold weather, and 

 which even yet continues to exert its influence. These effects 

 have been such that it will be many years to come ere they will 

 be completely obliterated from the eye of the observant naturalist. 



I have arranged my notes under the various classes of quadru- 

 peds, birds, and insects — the other departments of animal life I 



