NOTF.S FROM MAYO. 211 



first snow of the season; at 11 p.m. it covered the ground to a 

 depth of three inches, there being every indication of a heavy 

 fall ; but towards morning, with a change of wind and a rise of 

 the thermometer to 32°, rain came on, clearing off all the snow 

 by sunrise. Then until the 13th (when the general thaw set in) 

 we had the same continuance of mild frosts, the mercury varying 

 from 32° to 28° (the lowest), and on the nights of the 15th and 

 16th it rose to 39° and 40°. We had no frost after until the 20th, 

 when, with a light fall of snow, the thermometer marked two 

 degrees of frost, but that disappeared with the snow by noon next 

 day, and the rest of the month was fine and mild, with a few 

 showers of rain occasionally. 



February began with a light frost, but the entire month was 

 exceptionally mild and dry — in fact, the driest February we 

 remembered in this part of the country, quite belying the old 

 saying of " February, fill dyke," for we had twenty-two days 

 without rain, and a light hoar-frost only on three days. 



After March 5th cold, stormy weather set in, with frequent 

 hail and snow showers on some days, but not remaining on the 

 ground. A bitter frost began on the night of the 10th, becoming 

 very severe on the two succeeding nights, when the mercury (in 

 a thermometer eighteen inches from the ground) fell to 22° and 

 20° (the coldest night of the season), but fortunately, the wind 

 changing round from N.N.E. to S. caused the frost to disappear 

 as rapidly as it came, though not before it alarmed many farmers 

 who had potatoes planted, for fear of its having reached the 

 " sets," so deeply had it penetrated into the soil. For the rest 

 of the month the weather continued very stormy and cold, no 

 vegetation of any kind showing; and, in the midst of blinding 

 hail showers, our earliest spring visitors, the Sandwich Terns, 

 loudly gave notice of their arrival in the estuary. 



Owing to the ground being so long frozen, preventing any 

 worms coming to the surface, the Black-headed Gulls suffered 

 severely from want of food from the middle of December up to 

 Jan. 13th, when the thaw set in; numbers died throughout the 

 district, and were seen lying about the fields and along the shores 

 of the estuary, where they had been left by the tides. So hard 

 pressed were they for want of food, that a flock of about twenty 

 birds regularly haunted my poultry yard for nearly three weeks, 

 feeding with the fowls, and flying readily to any food thrown to 



