JANUARY 33 



overhang the pool have been treated in the same way 

 by the water-voles. 



This year of disaster has left its mark upon the 

 numbers of almost all resident birds ; all in fact have 

 paid more or less heavy toll, excepting the grain-feeders, 

 such as greenfinches and yellow-hammers, which have 

 tided over the evil times by hanging round the barn- 

 doors and rick-yards. How few the thrushes and 

 blackbirds are the coming spring will show when one 

 scarcely finds a nest in their favourite hedges. But 

 few stonechats remain. Goldfinches have become 

 scarcer. Some of our well-known robins are absent 

 from their wonted haunts. The smallest birds — long- 

 tailed tits, tree-creepers, wrens, goldcrests — though 

 relatively to their size they appear to stand the cold so 

 well — are fewer than formerly. Some species are 

 practically wiped out for the time being. After the 

 frost of 1895, nine months elapsed before we saw a single 

 mistle-thrush. A succession of open winters was 

 needed to bring their numbers once more to the normal. 

 The bird-stuffer reports thirty-five kingfishers, mostly 

 frozen, brought to him within three days. While the 

 cold kept the small rodents from stirring abroad, the 

 owls suffered badly. No large bags of partridges will 

 be made in the autumn ; some are picked up all skin 

 and bone. The farmers remark that few hares are left. 

 Woodpeckers are decimated ; herons much thinned in 

 numbers. Even the buzzards suffer, the frost driving 



