Frost Victims
Doubtless the hard-hearted member who urged its destruction will be delighted to know that the frost and snow of February and March were on his side. An acquaintance of mine who has made a special study of the bird in Shropshire and Worcester has reported that it proved lamentably vulnerable. We usually regard the very small birds, golden- crested wrens and long-tailed tits, as the worst sufferers from frost, with the possible exception of unmigrant red-wings, but a number of the bigger birds, including pigeons, plover and woodpeckers, were destroyed or here and there so weakened that they were killed by hawks and owls and crows, which last attacked new-born lambs. The exceptional weather drove the raptorial birds to excesses as it persuaded the woodpecker to the unusual diet of hive bees. Not all woodpeckers were as clever as one that I heard of, which tunnelled under deep snow to the hidden larder of an ant-heap.
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