NOTES FROM DIARY KEPT AT QUICKIOCK. 141 



B y what I could hear, this was an early season, for 

 frequently the ice does not go from the river till the 

 middle of June, and the fell lakes are not clear until 

 the end of the month. They generally expect the 

 first snow-storm in autumn, about Michaelmas 

 (but the river is often not frozen up till the middle 

 of November) . The ground is then usually covered 

 with snow, the sun disappears below the horizon, 

 and is never seen again until the 20th of January. 

 It came on to rain about the first week in July, 

 and for about six weeks I don't think we had 

 above six days in which no rain fell ; and my lad, 

 who lay out on the fells generally two nights every 

 week without a tent, used to complain bitterly of 

 the cold. To work these fells properly a man 

 requires a small tent, and three or four of these 

 half- civilized Laps to help him. By the second 

 week in July the young willow-grouse were three- 

 parts grown, and strong flyers (and I may here 

 remark that I never did see young birds grow «so 

 fast as these), but it was not until the first week 

 in August that I could find any young ptarmigan 

 fit to shoot. By the middle of July some few 

 ducks had brought their young broods down to 

 the water holes and lowland swamps, but it was 

 not until August that we had any real sport with 

 the flappers — for I cannot call it sport, as they do 

 here, to murder the old females and the young brood 



