Native Birds Destroyed by Intense Cold. Y2 5 



The rapidity wherewith both wild and domesticated 

 animals become fat in accordance with the severity or other- 

 wise of the approaching winter, is another provision of nature 

 in order to enable them to withstand the cold. We have 

 seen this to be the case with birds. Indeed the law seems 

 universal as regards the denizens of such regions as that now 

 under consideration. Both Europeans and natives assert that 

 they can prognosticate a very cold winter by inordinate 

 quantities of fat on the intestines and epiploon of wild and 

 domesticated quadrupeds ; moreover even man (white or red) 

 is no exception to the rule, the differences in weight in 

 summer and winter being very evident. I well remember a 

 butcher informing me at the beginning of the very cold 

 winter of 1867, that he knew the weather would be severe, as 

 he had not seen so much fat on the omenta and about the 

 kidneys o"f pigs, sheep, and cattle for many years. 



Being desirous of finding out how indigenous animals with- 

 stood the winter climate, I solicited Mr. Boardman's great 

 experience with reference to the birds. He says : " I remember 

 during the cold season of 1858-9 that crossbills and pine 

 finches were very numerous, and I procured a large number 

 in February, to see how far the eggs had advanced, and found 

 them nearly as large as buck-shot. Two days afterwards 

 we had a warm shower, then a sudden change to extreme cold, 

 which killed every small native bird in the woods, where 

 we found their bodies in abundance. The result was far from 

 being common ; not one bird was seen again during the 

 season, and the ruffed grouse were exceedingly scarce from 

 the circumstance that the entrances of their burrows in the 

 snow were frozen over and the birds were starved to death, 

 and in spring their bodies were found here and there all over 

 the forest."* 



* The same we shall see presently obtains even in Britain, although 

 not so pronounced ; but now and then seasons do occur when numbers of 

 our native birds perish from cold. 



