WINTER DAYS ON BREYDON 33 



instinct in some minds, which cannot be explained. By 

 reference to my notebooks, I find that hard winters, usually, 

 only come at long intervals ; and I have many times observed 

 that, unless we get heavy snows before the second or third 

 week in December, we do not often get much after Christmas 

 to worry over, and wildfowlers may expect a poor shooting 

 season here for the remainder of the time. 



I made a few observations during the stress of the severe 

 weather, and will give them as I have dated them : 



"December 31^, 1906. After a long spell of 'open' 

 winters, something akin to ' the old-fashioned 'uns ' obtained 

 during the last week of the year. On the 22nd it rained 

 heavily, well into the night, and next day snow began to fall ; 

 birds began to show signs of restlessness, and the black- 

 headed gulls had been for two or three days feeding in the 

 river, flying around the bridge in the heart of the town, a 

 fairly good sign of a change ' of some sort ' coming. As an 

 extraordinary tide will often come six hours ahead of a 

 storm, it may be these birds instinctively judge by the tem- 

 perature of the water, or by some faculty unknown to us. 

 The morning of the 23rd dawned with a fiery glow in the 

 west, which flooded the room as my wife opened the 

 blinds. 



" ' We're in for something out of the common ! ' I remarked, 

 and shortly the red glow cooled into grey, and from out the 

 deepening gloom snow began to fall fast and furiously, and in 

 right dead earnest. My first thoughts went out towards ' the 

 poor birds ! ' the birds that would die for want of food and 

 by the hail of shot. 



" On the 22nd and 23rd flocks of various wildfowl were 

 observed trooping along the foreshore southwards ; one bunch, 

 presumably of duck and mallard, numbering quite 500 ; and 

 a newspaper ' par ' (those mischievous little bulletins !) from 

 Aldeburgh reported that * huge flocks of ducks, wild geese, 

 wigeon and other fowl are continually passing south to sea- 

 board, indicating a continuance of the present severe 

 weather.' " 



Such sights and reports naturally set every owner, or 

 friend's owner of a shoulder or punt-gun to work furbishing 

 up his weapon, and laying in stores of ammunition ; local 

 ironmongers were loading cartridges by day and by night ; 

 and wild ducks began to fall to the guns of several frequenters 

 of Breydon. Every amateur puntsman got afloat, and had I 



