APPENDIX. 573 



To the Same. 



WALTON HALL, April K 1855. 



My dear Friend, What a winter we have had ! long, and cold, 

 and cheerless ; and so severe has it been upon our evergreens that 

 you would fancy they had all just come out of Chancery. The season 

 is nearly a month later than ordinary, and the poor birds, what with 

 the gun and the frost together, have suffered severely. Hitherto, I 

 have always heard the song of the storm-cock on the 2ist of Decem- 

 ber St Thomas' day. This year, his first notes struck my ear only 

 early in March, whilst his numbers are reduced to at least one-half. 

 There having been a great deficiency of haws this season, I fancy 

 that the redwing and the large fieldfare went southward on their first 

 arrival, for I have had none of them in the park. 



Poor cock-robin, the wren, and the hedge-sparrow, together with 

 the blackbird and the yellow-headed bunting (if I may judge by their 

 present reduced numbers), must have fallen victims to the severity 

 of the winter. We found several water-hens lying dead, most pro- 

 bably for want of food. \Vorst of all, my Canada geese are sorely 

 reduced in number. No doubt the major part of those missing have 

 been killed by the gun. Day after day fellows have been prowling 

 up and down with guns, in quest of whatever might start up in the 

 path before them. In October last I could count nearly forty 

 Canada geese in the park ; at present I am reduced to two pairs. 

 Yesterday I saw the first swallow for the first time this season. In 

 general, they appear here on the 3d or 4th of April. The farmers, too, 

 in this neighbourhood, have lost many sheep. Our wagtails only 

 got back about a week ago. They don't leave England in general, 

 but they retire from the northern to the southern counties, accord- 

 ing to circumstances. Mine disappear about the middle of Decem- 

 ber and return the first week in February. This year one solitary 

 bird revisited us in the first week of March ; but it soon disappeared. 

 Our rooks generally have eggs by the i2th of March. This year, on 

 that day, there was not a new nest of these useful birds to be seen 

 in the trees. Nothing seems to have thriven but the Hanoverian 



