1848. 



January 8th. Thaw in the morning, but severe frost in 

 afternoon. The wood -pigeons (in feeding on turnips) do not 

 dig into the root at all, or even into the heart of the green, 

 but eat off the edges of the leaves, doing really no mischief. 

 The rooks dig great holes into the roots themselves. 



February 9th. When the river is flooded, or much filled 

 with floating ice, the otters here take to the small ditches 

 and springs which remain unfrozen, to look for eels, and hunt 

 up and down these places to great distances from their usual 

 abode. 



I often observe that when I kill a single duck out of a flock, 

 after a short time one of the flock (probably the mate of the 

 dead bird) returns to near the place where it last saw the dead 



