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



March 19th. Visited "Woodhall in Innerwick parish. Its late proprietor 

 had allowed this farm, and the adjoining woods, to he overstocked with 

 rahhits, and the effects of this winter's deprivation of food, had driven them 

 to attack the trees, and hark the thorn hedges to a degree and extent that I 

 never before witnessed. Those acquainted with the place said there had not 

 been such a severe storm experienced there for the previous 18 years. Rood 

 after rood of the thorn and beech fences was gnawed bare ; the broom and 

 whins even were peeled several feet high, wherever they could be reached, 

 and much of both was killed. Even bramble was eaten off by the snow- line, 

 and the shoots peeled. Brier-bushes, wild gooseberries, black thorn, they 

 also fed upon ; shewing little discrimination ; except that laburnum was 

 untouched. Branches cut down in the woods in f eUing trees, were completely 

 barked ; and even the stumps of cut trees were bared to the timber. After- 

 wards I remarked that on the Halls farm many old oaks that had been cut, 

 never had been allowed to spring, by the over-prevalence of these destructive 

 rodents. Coppice oak in a scrubby state having been drifted full of snow was 

 peeled, 3, 4, and even 5 feet high. Elms, ashes, oaks, ivy, birch, mountain- 

 ash, hazel, holly, sycamore, and even firs were attacked, either by strips 

 being peeled off, or having rings cut all round the stem. Where the snow 

 had held down the points of the branches, the rabbits had climbed up to 

 attack the upper parts of the trunks, which they could not otherwise have 

 reached. A shepherd had come upon one rabbit that had got hanged in a 

 sloe-bush, while thus feeding aloft. It lay across a dean, and the rabbit had 

 ascended the stem by a buttress of snow, and had been stretching down with 

 its head between a cleft, to reach some twigs anchored by the snow, when 

 these becoming released by its efforts to browse on them, the animal was 

 launched into space, with its head fixed between the forks, where it remained 

 suspended at 9 feet high. I noticed several large oaks that had been climbed, 

 by the aid of the snow, in order to be at the young twigs. Of trees killed 

 by them, firs, hazels, and some young ashes were observed. A large ivy that 

 had been killed overhung a rock, and the rabbits had probably obtained 

 access to the stem over a snow bridge. Hollies were gnawed even at the 

 people's doors to a certain height, the rabbits standing up on their hind legs 

 to strip off the twigs. They even ventured on to the ice-covered ponds and 

 peeled the wiUows, which were left a crop of white wands. They did not 

 relish snowdrops, but ate the crocuses all over. Greens and green-beds in 

 the gardens were cropt by them ; leeks were cut level with the snow ; and 

 cabbage stalks peeled. Here many thrushes were singing in the evening, 

 and lapwings and curlews had settled in the fields near their breeding places, 



March 22nd. In the Pease dean, hips are still adhering to the branches 

 uneaten; and many haws were afterwards observed in a variety of places. 

 It is noticeable that fieldfares leave haws till they are reduced to extremities ; 

 and with regard to hips the redbreast obtains the greater share of them, and 

 not the thrush kind. March 26. After bitterly cold weather, the baffled 

 lapwings were driven to the ploughed fields and the coasts, and curlews re- 

 gained the sea-shores. Wild ducks had left the rocky coast. Mar. 28. One 

 grey linnet returned. The f urzy dean here was once notable for the number 

 of these linnets that bred in shelter of the bushes ; but only three or four 



