44 FEBRUARY 



a score golden plover whisking low along the 

 marsh, only one utters a single note of unspeakable 

 melancholy ; a single, inauspicious cormorant wings 

 a business-like flight towards the lochs of Strath- 

 more, where, as he knows, is good store of eels ; the 

 only cheerful creatures abroad are chirruping bevies 

 of snow-buntings a bird of which no degree of cold 

 or storm seems able to lower the spirits or abate the 

 activity. Even the rooks become listless and de- 

 pressed under stress of weather. 



There is, however, one condition of climate which 

 even the snow-buntings cannot withstand. As long 

 as a few acres of grass and rushes remain bare of 

 snow, so long can these cheerful little fowl pick up 

 their frugal fare of small seeds. But when deep 

 snow wraps field and fell in uniform pallor, they 

 must move elsewhere, driven, not by cold, but by 

 hunger. Thus it came to pass early in February, 

 1895, that almost every snow-bunting had left 

 Caithness. Only two or three pairs of crafty old 

 birds might be seen still haunting the stackyards 

 and threshing-mills. 



Where had they gone ? I found an answer the 

 very day I returned to London. A paragraph in 

 the morning paper informed me that large quantities 



