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WILDFOWLING IN MILD WEATHEK. 



"BLANK DAYS" IN JANUARY, 1886. 



MOST descriptions of wildfowling which have been pub- 

 lished relate to successful attempts made under the favour- 

 able auspices of severe weather. One seldom hears anything 

 on the subject, or of what has been done (rather, in many 

 cases, not done) under the reverse conditions. Perhaps, 

 therefore, the following account of (as regards spoil) a some- 

 what fruitless expedition may be of interest, both as showing 

 the other side of the picture, and illustrative of the habits of 

 wildfowl during mild seasons. 



Possibly many might object to the winter of 1886 being 

 described as " mild " ; and in point of fact it was the most 

 irregular winter in its intensity and erratic in its distribution, 

 that has occurred in the writer's experience. In the same 

 county, within twenty miles of each other, we had both 

 winter and spring simultaneously : where I write (Feb. 8) 

 there is not a sign of winter, but an hour's journey or so 

 inland the snow lies several feet deep, roads and railways are 

 blocked, and all the rigours of a most severe winter prevail. 

 Throughout the north of England generally the snowfall has 

 been local and " patchy," in some districts the frost having 

 held almost continuously for weeks, while elsewhere not a 

 vestige of snow was visible. Thus on the inland moors, for 

 example, there have been successions of heavy snowfalls, 

 alternating with partial thaws and renewal of frost, this 

 causing the half-melted snow to freeze again into a crust so 

 hard that neither sheep nor Grouse can reach their food. 

 The hill-farmers are at their wits' end, and the local papers 

 almost daily contain reports of the occurrence of Grouse and 

 other moor-birds in most unusual localities, very many miles 



