COLD WINTERS 215 



ceeding that of other animals by from 8 to 14. 

 The clothing of feathers also guards against the 

 ill-effects of sudden variation of temperature, 

 which certain birds in their extensive flights 

 necessarily pass through. 



During the very cold winters, which in Britajn 

 are happily few and far between, the birds must 

 have suffered terribly. We read of the Thames 

 being covered with ice in the year 1664, sixty-one 

 inches thick, and of great numbers of birds having 

 perished. 



John Evelyn, in speaking about his garden 

 during the severe winter of 1683-84, says : "I need 

 say nothing of holly, yew, box, juniper, &c., hardy 

 and spontaneous to our country ; and yet, to my 

 grief again, I find an holly standard, 'of near one 

 hundred years old, drooping, and of doubtful 

 aspect ; and a very beautiful hedge, though, indeed, 

 much younger, being clipped about Michaelmas, 

 is mortified near a foot beneath the top, and in 

 some places to the very ground ; so as there is 

 nothing seems proof against such a winter, which 

 is late cut and exposed. . . . The vines have 

 escaped ; and of the esculent plants and sallads, 

 most, except artichokes, which are universally 

 lost ; and, what I prefer before any sallad what- 

 ever, eaten raw when young, my sampicr is all 



