12G Effects of the Winter of 1878-9, by James Hardy. 



return to the stack-yard. Three blue-tits and three greater tits come to the 

 window for crumbs. The blue-tit was victor over the other birds then being 

 supplied with food, and to-day one snatched a piece of bread out of a robin's 

 bill, and flew off with it. A missel-thrush seen to-day. 



Feb. 1. Starlings now betake themselves to banks where the snow had 

 been melted off by the sun ; much congratulation going on among them 

 meanwhile in their own language. Two long- tailed field-mice {Mus 

 nylvaticus) found dead in the snow in the garden. Carrion-crow, for part of 

 the day, now searches, soHtarily, the bared rocks along the sea's most distant 

 margin. No thrushes to be seen. Hawthorn trunks appearing above the 

 snow have been barked by rabbits. Chaffinches fed on crumbs keep up a 

 continual fight ; the females are the boldest. There is no separation of the 

 sexes in this quarter, during the winter, into separate flocks. Feb. 5th and 

 6th, a thaw, with the wind W. and N. W. A blackbii'd noticed at carrion. 

 A sea-pi]Dit appeared on bared ground. Feb. 7. The ground bared by the 

 melted snow now revealed some of the places where the havoc had been 

 among the birds, that had been unable to extricate themselves from the in- 

 clement conditions in which they had become environed, by not timeously 

 shifting their position. The spot examined to-day was a burn side adjacent 

 to a turnip-field, which finally terminates on the sea-side. Wings and re- 

 mains of more than a score of fieldfares were come upon here, wherever there 

 ,had been the likelihood of a piece of soft ground to perforate with their bills ; 

 ■ and also among some whins on a sunny bank, where they had slept at night, 

 after distributing themselves over the turnip-field by day. Besides these 

 there were found dead here, one blue pigeon of the sea-stock, two or three 

 redwings, one golden plover, two blackbirds, a partridge, and a woodcock. 

 A water-hen had fallen a victim on the sea-coast. There were very few dead 

 birds on the sea-banks. One of these was a thrush. To-day the larks were 

 hovering in the air. Feb. 8th, snow disappearing ; three blackbirds appeared 

 in the garden, the only ones left ? ; and a thrush was afterwards seen in a 

 ditch on the coast. Redshanks and curlews were scarce, but wild ducks 

 were numerous in the sea. Black-headed gulls in their winter dress were 

 flying about ; also a great black-backed gull. Larks were again hovering 

 about. In the evening a pair of corn-buntings appeared on the garden fence. 

 No lapwings had been visible for a long period. Groing along the coast 

 northwards, I found at the Bents shore, a razor-bill, Alca Torda, driven in ; 

 probably in Dec. or Jan. I found another on Feb. 14 ; other two on Feb. 

 25 ; other two and a dead gull on Feb. 27, at other parts of the coast. Dead 

 redwings and fieldfares were less numerous here, than on our more exposed 

 situation. Feb. 9. The runs of the long-tailed field-mice about the roots 

 and clumps of the cocks -foot grass, which were much eaten, and cut through, 

 became now manifest at wall-sides, when freed from the deep snow. Long 

 tracts by hedge -sides, and by the footpaths in the woods were, after the thaw, 

 seen to be hollowed out, and ploughed by these mice ; the poor animals when 

 covered up by the snow, in order that they might not go far from their nest, 

 being reduced to feed on the roots and shoots of the creeping kinds of grass. 

 The woodmen call them " Shear-mice," perhaps from their cutting the grass 

 into short lengths, to place in their retreats. A railway bank was noted to 



