THE ZooLocist—Marcu, 1875. 4361 
Ornithological Notes from North Lincolnshire. 
By Joun CorpeEaux, Esq. 
(Continued from Zool. 8. S. 4296.) 
DECEMBER, 1874, and January, 1875. 
Ir is seldom we have two consecutive months exhibiting a 
greater contrast than the last in 1874 and the first in 1875. 
December was remarkable for the long-continued frost and snow 
and the unusually low temperature, being very nearly seven 
degrees below an average of the last ten years. On the nights 
of the 28th, 29th and 30th, the thermometer here fell to six 
degrees above zero, and a few miles from this place, on the hills, 
to three degrees. This is the greatest amount of cold we have 
experienced since the memorable winter of 1860-61, when on 
Christmas Eve the thermometer registered several degrees below 
zero. At 7.30 on New Year’s morning my thermometer on the 
north side of the house, suspended two feet from the ground, 
marked only ten degrees above zero. On this morning every tree 
and bush, to their tiniest and most fragile twig, were decked with a 
fringe of ice crystals an inch or more in depth: the effect at sun- 
rise was magnificent, and not to be forgotten, as the woods and 
hedgerows appeared planted with gigantic tree ferns of frosted 
silver, which Aurora, the rosy-fingered, had touched with the most 
lovely but evanescent hues, far surpassing, indeed, in rarest beauty 
and chasteness, anything that art could attempt or imagine. 
From December the 8th to the 12th we had immense numbers of 
various birds in that part of the district immediately contiguous to 
the Humber. A large proportion of these were arrivals from more 
northern districts on their journey southward, as they soon left us 
again. I scarcely ever recollect seeing more wild geese, ducks, 
plovers, gulls and waders, or large flocks of smaller birds, larks, 
buntings, &c. 
By the 26th all bird life had disappeared in our bleak marshes, 
even the hardy little snow bunting being unable any longer to pick 
up a subsistence where everything was buried under a universal 
thick white carpet. Those birds which did not leave us for more 
genial climes suffered terribly from cold and scarcity of food. 
Blackbirds, redwings and thrushes haunted the rough grass on 
the sides of the more open drains, living on the snails hybernating 
