302 A WINTER STORM 



LXIX 



After lulling the land with preposterously balmy air 

 A winter f r g i x weeks on end, Nature changed her 

 storm mood with a vengeance on Saturday, Decem- 

 ber 26, 1908. Summoning an angry easterly and south- 

 easterly gale to accentuate the sudden fall of 

 temperature, she assumed an aspect of appalling 

 gloom. Twilight reigned from sunrise to sunset; 

 snow feegan to fall in the night, drifting outrageously, 

 so that from Saturday morning till Thursday following 

 we were entirely cut off' from the rest of the world. 

 Never, not even in the great snow of January 1895, 

 have I seen such rapid drifting. A singular feature of 

 the storm was that, although on the west coast of Scot- 

 land it was accompanied by furious easterly and south- 

 easterly gales, in corresponding latitudes on the east 

 coast, at Alnwick, for instance, snow fell to the depth 

 of about eighteen inches without a breath of wind, 

 wherefore there was no drifting. 



The rigour of those days told with remarkable 

 severity upon winged creatures. In districts so far 

 apart as Edinburgh and Torquay observers have 

 recorded a premonitory southward movement of 

 various species in great numbers, taking place before 

 snow began to fall; and during the storm my own 

 woods swarmed with blackbirds and thrushes in extra- 

 ordinary quantity. 



One is accustomed to regard the common partridge 

 as one of our hardiest native birds, yet many of them 

 succumbed in the snow. Several were picked up dead 



