338 Mr. Selby on the effects produced upon Animal 



and even 7° below zero, or 36° and 39° below freezing, in the mid- 

 land and southern parts of the island. In this and adjacent districts 

 it does not appear to have reached this intensity, the following being 

 observations on which dependence can be placed. At Kelso, 140 feet 

 above the sea-level, it fell to 3° F. on the night of the 21st of Jan. 

 1838, and during the continuance of the storm was frequently ob- 

 served at 5° and 8° F. At Mellerstein, about 500 'feet above the 

 sea, a self-regulating thermometer of Adie's marked it at 2° F. du- 

 ring the nights of January 20 and 21, 1838. At Greenknow, near 

 Gordon, and considerably higher than Mellerstein, 3° F. on the night 

 of 21st January. And at Mertoun House about the 14th or 15th Ja- 

 nuary, a common thermometer was observed 2° F., and again on the 

 morning of January 21 at 2° F. Early in March the frost abated in 

 rigour, and a slow thaw began to melt the vast accumulation of snow 

 which had been drifted into the lanes, hollows, and hedge banks by 

 the severe and oft-repeated gales that had occurred during the two 

 months' frost. Up to this period none of those indications which we 

 had been accustomed to hail as the harbingers of spring had been 

 observed, such as the song of the misselthrush and the mavis, the 

 cooing of the ringdove, or the pipe of the golden plover, which in 

 usual seasons seldom fail to greet our ears with their welcome notes 

 before February has advanced into the second week. On referring 

 to my notes, I find it was not till the 5th and 6th of March that the 

 peawit and golden plover were fixst seen, or the carol of the lark 

 heard ; on the 7th the thrush and missel-thrush were in song, being 

 a period later by nearly a month than any I can find in a register 

 kept for many years past, and it was not till the 20th that the con- 

 gregated flocks of the ringdove began to disperse, or that they were 

 heard cooing and exhibiting that peculiar flight which distinguishes 

 the species at the time of pairing, and which in ordinary years sel- 

 dom fails to occur before the 8th or 10th of Februar)'. It was now 

 that the eff^ects of this long- continued storm, so remarkable for the 

 great degree of cold that accompanied it, became fully apparent ; for 

 instead of the host of birds that were wont to resort to our groves 

 and plantations at this season, and whose " wood-notes wild" used 

 to greet us in every direction, a few individuals or a solitary pair 

 alone were to be seen ; and where, a season or two before, a united 

 concert of a multitude of thrushes might have been listened to on a 

 calm mild spring evening, not more than two or three at far distant 

 stations could now be heard ; of our familiar attendant the red- 

 breast, few survived to pour forth their impassioned lay, as the dimi- 

 nished numbers of this favourite bird, even after the increase of the 



