frost was reported from every district of England, Scotland and Wales. For three days in the third week of April the thermometer registered from 10 to 27 degrees Fahrenheit. The Committee requested its local correspondents to make careful observations on the resulting damage, and the replies received are given in the form of an appendix,[1] Several interesting facts were brought to light—in general it was stated that the effects of the frost had been disastrous: but when the evidence came to be analysed the proof seemed strangely incomplete, for very few reporters were able to state from personal observations that eggs laid before the frost had failed to hatch. On the other hand, several accurate observers reported that they had marked down eggs so frozen into the materials of the nest that it was not possible to lift them out or to separate them from each other, yet it was afterwards found that these eggs hatched out healthy chicks. On April 13th six Grouse eggs were found in a nest amongst heather when the temperature was 25 degrees of frost—and all six hatched out. On another occasion, when it happened that some Pheasant's eggs had been laid in a Grouse's nest, the Pheasant's eggs were the eggs which failed, while the Grouse's eggs were successfully hatched. Many correspondents went so far as to say that unless the frost was sufficiently severe to split the egg there was no danger of their fertility being affected, and of very many gamekeepers to whom the question was put very few could state that they had actually seen a Grouse's egg split by frost.
Actual splitting of the eggs by frost does occur, but is exceedingly rare when the nest is in its customary position in heather. When placed in the open probably the eggs are liable to suffer just as Plover's eggs did in 1908, and an extra hard frost will sometimes split them. Even very scanty heather-growth retains the warmer air, and so shelters the nest and eggs from frost and winds. Moreover, if sitting has not begun the eggs are generally more or less buried in the material of the nest, so much so that it is impossible to count them unless they are disturbed.
Enough has been said to emphasise the statement that the eggs of the Grouse are wonderfully tolerant of adverse weather conditions; the fact is not sufficiently well recognised, and because occasional losses occur there is a tendency among gamekeepers to put down every failure of stock to some sharp frost or heavy snowfall in the month of April or May. They often do not inquire whether as a matter of fact any eggs were laid at the date when the frost occurred, they
- ↑ Vide vol. ii. Appendix I.
