CHAPTER XXII. 



Aurora Borealis— Unfavourable weather for Birds about St. Valentine's Day— The Waler- 

 Vole in the Rhi— In the Eden in Fifeshire — In the Black Water, Kinloch Leven— Does it 

 feed on Salmon Fry and Ova?— The Kingfisher— Character of the Water-Vole— Note 

 about the Hedgehog. 



A BRILLIANT display of aurora toreaKs on the early morning of the 

 8 th [February 1871] led us to conclude that a change of weather 

 was not far distant ; and before sunset of that same day the wind 

 had gone round from east by south to south-west, and a drizzling 

 rain, with a very much milder temperature than we had known for 

 three months, told us that, for the present at least, King Frost 

 had agreed to suspension of hostilities. Since then it has been 

 mostly wet, with occasional hailstone showers, and turbulent withal, 

 if not actually stormy. The revictualling of Paris under the terms 

 of the capitulation and armistice was not a more sensible relief to 

 the starving inhabitants than was the recent thaw to our wild birds 

 on sea and shore. The moment they became convinced that it 

 was no sham, but a real, veritable thaw, they revived amazingly. 

 Shaking off the torpidity in which cold and want had so pitilessly 

 bound them, they took heart, and bustled about in search of such 

 food as might now be procured by diligent seeking in copse and 

 hedgerow, by pool and stream. An occasional strophe, sadly in- 

 consecutive and discordant, may now again be heard when the sun 

 shines out and the storm has luUed, from some of our hardier 

 warblers, and we have observed that in some instances rooks have 

 begun to pair; but our bird-world, upon the whole, is far from 

 what it should be at this date ; more taken up, like vanquished 



