146 Supposed Connection of Meteoric Phenomena, 



the wind remains in the south. The hazel, lilac, horsechestnut, 

 and other trees and shrubs, are bursting into leaf. The thrush 

 was singing loudly on December 7., the earliest date in Lord 

 Suffield's table being Dec. 4. 1735 (II. 128.), the medium 

 time being Jan. 14. 1747 ; lambs, not of the Dorset breed, were 

 dropped in this parish (Longfleet), on Dec. 15.; and the 

 moles commenced their operations in October, and continued 

 them all through November and December. Frogs and toads 

 croaked here, Jan. 27. 1835. (For the usual times of these 

 occurrences, see Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, Kalen- 

 darial Index, p. 1189.) 



Thus have we seen that the year 1834, as well as 1833, 

 furnishes innumerable applications of the theory advanced. 

 Certain it is, that, as far as the examples adduced conspire 

 (and there are doubtless many others, of which, for the pre- 

 sent, owing to distance and various other circumstances, we 

 must remain in ignorance), a case has been made out, from 

 the occurrences of the two last years alone, to warrant the in- 

 dulgence of a belief, that the supposition of the connection in 

 question is not altogether hypothetical. A recent statement 

 confirms these conjectures, by adducing an argument which 

 is conclusive as to a change in progress, in the vegetable 

 kingdom, in Australia. The Hobart Town Courier (in a 

 number recently received) relates that " a "remarkable phe- 

 nomenon has for some time been taking place in the interior 

 of Van Diemen's Land, especially in the higher parts having 

 an eastern exposure, in the death or decay of whole forests 

 of that species of Eucalyptus commonly called the black gum. 

 Some suppose that the seasons have recently undergone a 

 change, and that the climate, generally, of the island, is be- 

 coming colder and less genial (a notion, this, at variance with 

 the supposed effects of civilisation); and, consequently, that 

 such plants and trees as had already reached the verge of 

 their climate, are necessarily cut off to a certain extent, just in 

 the same way as the she oak (Casuarina <?quisetifolia) and the 

 cherry tree (Exocarpus cupressiformis) are not found beyond 

 a certain height on the hills of the interior, or as the growth 

 of gum trees may be seen from Hobart Town, on the side of 

 Mount Wellington, to be limited to about the height of 3000 ft. 

 from the level of the sea." Others suppose that these trees 

 grow, and are principally found to die off, in plains and level 

 places, surrounded by hills ; they are destroyed by the morn- 

 ing vapours and fog, that kill so many crops of peas, potatoes, 

 &c. In either case, this fact shows some great change in 

 the southern hemisphere of late. But to resume the argu- 

 ment : we have instances on record of former periods, when 



