136 BIRDS IN A DISMAL SUMMER 



Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, 

 The chilling autumn, angry winter, change 

 Their wonted liveries ; and the 'mazed world 

 By their increase now knows not which is which.' 



No detail is here wanting of our experience of the 

 treacherous winter and dismal summer of 1912 ; 

 whence the conclusion may be drawn that if the 

 British climate played such pranks in Elizabethan 

 days, it is not likely to mend its ways in ours. Young 

 grouse were well afoot before the evil days began ; but 

 partridges were just chipping the shell when the 

 drought and heat of May vanished before the cruel 

 cold and wet of June. The nests were unusually well 

 filled and there was promise of a splendid stock ; but 

 in most districts the chicks were wiped out wholesale. 

 Bereaved parents were far more frequent than coveys ; 

 here and there a pair of old birds might be seen 

 leading a single young one, sole survivor of what 

 should have been a jocund little company of a dozen 

 or sixteen. 



In other departments of bird-life the arboreal and 

 aquatic groups the effects of the season were not so 

 disastrous, and the result of the Wild Birds Preserva- 

 tion Acts is apparent in the steady increase of two very 

 dissimilar species to wit, the great crested grebe and 

 the goldfinch. 



Of the grebe, the late Lord Lilford was able to note 

 with satisfaction, before his death in 1896, the gradual 

 return of this handsome water-fowl to the haunts 

 whence it had been well-nigh exterminated by the 

 diligence of the purveyors of grebe-skin muffs, boas, 



