536 Notes on Effects of the past Winter, by A. Brotherston. 



the young plants, as soon as they appeared above ground were, 

 as usual, pulled up by these birds, and the seeds eaten. Even 

 onions, leeks, &c., the seeds of which they do not eat — but 

 apparently from the force of habit — are also pulled up and left 

 to die on the surface. Contrary to expectation, the buds of 

 gooseberries and red currants have noc suffered so much from 

 their depredations as usual, owing, I think, to the protection 

 afforded to them by the covering of snow by which they were 

 protected. 



The following notes are from birds dissected during winter: — 

 Hawks (Sparrow and Kestrel) were very fat ; Owls also, especially 

 the Tawny Owl, exceedingly fat. The only substances found in 

 their stomachs were the remains of mice and a few rats — no 

 birds. The Creeper and Skylark were in fair condition in the 

 middle of February. In the beginning of the same month, a 

 pair of Siskins, which had been feeding on the seeds of the 

 alder, were in excellent condition. Rooks generally are in fair 

 condition. Some of them commenced nesting at Ednam, Eden- 

 hall (at Edenhall in greatly increased numbers), and other places 

 in this neighbourhood, in the end of February — the usual time — 

 which, if they had been hard up, would not have been the case 

 until later in the season. Kingfishers, of which I had four 

 during the storm, were all fat. They were obtained on the 

 smaller burns and streams that were not frozen over. The cold 

 does not seem to have any bad effect upon them, unless, as some- 

 times happens, they get frozen to their perch. Grouse — both 

 black and red — in February, though not fat, were in fair con- 

 dition ; one, a grey hen, was obtained in the beginning of the 

 month on Tweedside, a few miles below Kelso — a long way from 

 its natural haunts (the Lammermoors, on the north, or the 

 Cheviots, to the south). It seemed to have eaten any green 

 thing that came in its way. The crop was distended with a large 

 quantity of newly-swallowed leaves and buds, mostly Geum with 

 a little grass and a few Veronica leaves intermixed. So far as I 

 can learn from shepherds and others, they had seen no dead birds 

 on the moors as yet. But it is probable that some of the weaker 

 birds, as the spring advances, will pine and die. No Lapwings 

 were seen throughout the winter ; but some of them are now 

 (March 10th) returned from the sea-coast. Common Snipe and 

 Woodcock, in the end of last and beginning of this year, were 



