170 peesidbnt's addeess. 



eveiy day. We placed in large dishes most of the scraps of the 

 house, consisting of a variety of food, animal and vegetable. Our 

 visitors included Thrushes, Blackbirds, Starlings, I think three 

 species of Titmice, various Finches, and other familiar birds; 

 and the Eooks also came for their share, though the food was 

 placed not many feet distant from the windows, where we went 

 frequently to look at them. In Argyleshire, where there are 

 birds in considerable variety, a great number of Herons and 

 Curlews succumbed to the cold, at least my keeper found many 

 lying dead about the shore, and they were much less abundant 

 last autumn than usual. I hope we are now entering on a cycle 

 of milder seasons. Certainly the contrast between the winter 

 just over and the preceding one has been extraordinary in point 

 of temperature. Mr. Lyell, of the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society, informs me that according to the observations recorded 

 by him, the thermometer never went down so low as 25° Pah. 

 last winter, whereas in the preceding it did so on nineteen days ! 

 This applies to the mouths of November, December, January, 

 February, and March. The lowest temperature he re3orded last 

 winter being 29° F., whilst the winter before it was 4° F. ! But 

 if there were no low temperatures to encounter there were furious 

 storms of wind, notably that in October, when so many thousands 

 of trees were blown down, the scene in some places where it had 

 been most severe reminding one, on a small scale, of the descrip- 

 tions given of the effects of a tornado in the American forests. 

 It was at this time too that there was such a lamentable loss of 

 life and property amongst the fishermen of the Berwickshire 

 coast. 



I don't know how far it may be owing to the mildness of the 

 last winter, or to the winds prevailing in October, but the num- 

 ber of "Woodcocks in the western Highlands of Scotland has been 

 much smaller than usual, in fact I am inclined to think we had 

 no Scandinavian immigrants, the number I saw in December 

 being I think no more than what remained of those bred on the 

 ground ; and I heard that the same scarcity prevailed generally ' 

 in the district. I thought that they might have missed that 

 particular district, but that on their return in the spring from 



