170 THE LAST ENGLISH HOME 



For all ordinary winters the Bearded Tit is well pro- 

 vided. But, unhappily, the winter of 1890 the longest 

 on record since the days of Lorna Doone was not an 

 ordinary one. 



Fifty-nine days of consecutive, almost sunless, frost 

 were recorded in London, and in parts of the Broads 

 the weather was even more severe. The snails for 

 weeks and months were glued fast to the ground 

 or rush-stalks tantalisingly in sight for much of 

 the time, as there was no great quantity of snow, 

 but as much out of reach of a small beak as flies in 

 amber. The birds when most in need of a warming 

 meat-diet were driven to depend almost entirely on 

 such dry ship-biscuits as the seeds of reeds, without 

 even water, excepting here and there in the running 

 streams, to wash it down, and suffered terribly in 

 consequence. 



It was on one of the bright mornings towards the 

 end of April 1891, when, in spite of a wind still nailed 

 in the east, a warm sun, and such spring sounds as 

 the call of the Nuthatch, a pair of which had from 

 daybreak been carrying on a lively conversation over 

 an unfinished nest in a box in the garden, encouraged 

 the hope that the return of the glacial epoch might 

 not after all be so near as for the last six months had 

 seemed probable, we found ourselves, after an early 

 breakfast and drive of fourteen miles, landing from a 

 boat on the edge of a marsh skirting a Broad. The 

 marsh is strictly preserved, and on it, as lately as the 

 summer before, Bearded Tits were plentiful. We had 



