212 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
at finding that it held, not a Mole but a Water Rat—quite dead, of course. 
I have never before heard of Water Rats committing depredations of this 
kind, though of course peas in a germinating state might well be acceptable 
to these animals; but the difficulty is to account for this individual Rat 
having got into the garden, which is at least a quarter of a mile from the 
river, and surrounded completely by a high wall. It is out of the question 
to suppose that the Rat came by an overland route, but any subterranean 
method is almost as difficult to conjecture. The Vicarage garden lies, 
I should say, at least, from seventy to one hundred feet above the level of 
the river, and even if there were any drainage running between that and 
the Vicarage, there is no known connection with it in the garden. Perhaps 
some of your correspondents may be able to throw light upon the subject.— 
O. P. CamBripe@xr (Bloxworth, Dorset). 
BIRDS. 
Birds in the Severe Weather.— During the first week of March I saw 
what I had not seen before for over forty years, Redwings and Thrushes 
dying from cold and starvation, and Peewits so tame with hunger 
that one might easily have knocked them down with a stick. On March 
17th I picked up several dead Redwings and Thrushes with scarcely a 
vestige of flesh upon them. At the same time the frost here, though 
without intermission since Feb. 21st, was not very severe, excepting on the 
nights of March 3rd and 16th, on each of which the thermometer, sheltered 
and with a western aspect, registered 24° Fahr. The ice formed in the night 
during that period generally disappeared each day, so that there was no 
skating like that enjoyed in the metropolitan districts. Nor were the dead- 
leaf-protected woods and ditches frozen up, so that the succumbing of the 
birds was the more unusual. Redwings and Thrushes, however, rely 
mainly on berries, of which the supply was exhausted during the spell of 
frost in January. Some of the roads and lanes here were covered in places 
with snail-shells, hunted out and brought to the slaughter-stone by the 
Thrushes, but alas! except in very few instances, uncracked, showing that 
they were nearly all dead shells, and useless to the starving birds. The 
only other severe March frost within my own recollection was in the year 
1845, when not only did Redwings, Thrushes, and Fieldfares die by scores, 
but Snipes and Woodcocks came into gardens and ditches in the village, 
and were in some instances knocked down with sttcks and stones. I and 
my brother shot nine Woodcocks one day, not one of them being worth 
picking up. Repeatedly, too, during that frost 1 saw Thrushes and Red- 
wings pounced upon and torn to pieces by Rooks, but without anything to 
satisfy the hunger of the latter, excepting feathers and bones. I saw also 
a Great Titmouse fall upon and kill a Golden-crested Wren. The frost 
lasted in that year until very nearly the end of March, the night of the 18th 
