Sufferings of Birds 
Other severe winters, fatal to many birds, 
were those of 1408, 1838, 1855, 1860, 1878-9, 
1880-1, 1890-1, and 1894-5. The first real 
cold was not felt till the end of November 
1916, and, though January and February 1917 
were abnormally cold and wintry, it was not 
till March and April that our resident birds, 
weakened by the privations of the preceding 
months, died wholesale of starvation. In 
some localities not a few species entirely dis- 
appeared, and in others many species were 
brought perilously near extinction. PLOVERS 
and WADING-BIRDS were naturally early 
victims, many of the former being picked up 
as mere skeletons, and quantities of the 
smaller insectivorous birds suffered likewise. 
Doubtless the winter of 1916-17, which it is 
reckoned destroyed three-fourths of the in- 
sect-eating wild birds, did much to account 
for the dearth of useful birds in the following 
early summer (British Birds Magazine, vol. 
Xi. pp. 266-71, and vol. xii. pp. 26-35). 
June 1917 was remarkable for exceptionally 
severe thunderstorms, and on the r6th there 
occurred the worst within living memory. 
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