Sufferings of Birds 



Other severe winters, fatal to many birds, 

 were those of 1408, 1838, 1855, 1860, 1878-9, 

 1880-1, 1890-1, and 1894-5. The first real 

 cold was not felt till the end of November 

 1916, and, though January and February 1917 

 were abnormally cold and wintry, it was not 

 till March and April that our resident birds, 

 weakened by the privations of the preceding 

 months, died wholesale of starvation. In 

 some localities not a few species entirely dis- 

 appeared, and in others many species were 

 brought perilously near extinction. PLOVERS 

 and WADING-BIRDS were naturally early 

 victims, many of the former being picked up 

 as mere skeletons, and quantities of the 

 smaller insectivorous birds suffered likewise. 

 Doubtless the winter of 1916-17, which it is 

 reckoned destroyed three-fourths of the in- 

 sect-eating wild birds, did much to account 

 for the dearth of useful birds in the following 

 early summer (British Birds Magazine, vol. 

 xi. pp. 266-71, and vol. xii. pp. 26-35). 

 June 1917 was remarkable for exceptionally 

 severe thunderstorms, and on the i6th there 

 occurred the worst within living memory. 



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