3 1 4 System of Calendars of Nature recommended. 



range, 51 ; average maximum, 55| ; average minimum, 45-^; mean differ- 

 ence of day and night, 10J; mean temperature, 50-^g-. — Rain: Greatest 

 quantity in one day (Nov. 2.), 1*452 in. ; greatest quantity in one month 

 (October), 6*797 in. j total of year, 42*25 in. 



Ashfield, near Falmouth, Cornwall, March 17. 1836. 



Art. IX. Remarks in Recommendation of a System of Calendars 

 of Natural Appearances. Extracted from a Letter from the Rev. 

 W. T. Bree, M.A. 



As to calendars (I do not mean of the weather, but of 

 natural appearances, birds, insects, plants, &c), under judi- 

 cious management, they would be interesting, and might not 

 take up much room. If, e.g., one were kept, say in Kent, in 

 Cornwall, in Warwickshire, Yorkshire, Edinburgh, and one 

 still further north ; and the same, or nearly the same, articles 

 selected for observation in all ; the whole of them, at the end 

 of the year, might be formed into a succinct table, which would 

 pleasingly exemplify the difference of seasons in these different 

 and widely distant districts. The articles to be noticed should 

 be such as are tolerably uniform and constant ; e. g. the 

 appearance and retreat of swallows, fieldfares, &c. ; the song 

 of the cuckoo, blackcap, redstart, &c; kinds of insects that give 

 signs of spring, summer, and autumn, as Vanessa urticse, 

 Gonepteryx rhamni, Pontk cardamines, cockchafer, Hippar- 

 chitf Janirtf, &c. ; of plants, such kinds as are pretty punctual 

 in producing their flowers, as the winter aconite, snowdrop, 

 crocus, primrose, blackthorn, whitethorn, &c. ; a decided 

 preference being given to wild species, as being less likely to 

 be put out of their usual course by extraneous circumstances, 

 than those under cultivation. A lady who married from this 

 neighbourhood, and went to reside in Stirlingshire, hard by 

 the Carron Works, took with her from a garden nine miles 

 hence a collection of hardy herbaceous plants, many of which, 

 I find, on comparing notes, flower considerably earlier in 

 their Stirlingshire quarters, than they used to do in their 

 former abode in Warwickshire. How do you account for 

 that, when Carron Hall is so very much further north ? 



Allesley Rectory, near Coventry, Sept. 15. 1832. 



My winter aconites have showed their yellow heads and 

 green ruffs a week or ten days since. — Rev. W. T* Bree, in 

 a letter dated Dec. 19. 1835. 



What a late spring ! No swallows, redstart, blackcap, or 

 anything of the kind. — Id. April 13. 1836. 



Here is May 14., and I have not yet seen a swift; I begin 



