EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 7 



and of a musty rancid smell, but to taste insipid, and this scarcely any- 

 where above six inches deep, the earth again below being of a due con- 

 sistence, and genuine smell. He then says, "this must needs be the effect 

 of lightning, which explodes from the clouds most times in a circular 

 manner; it first singes the grass and makes it of a russet colour, but the 

 year following of a dark luxuriant green, the earth underneath having been 

 highly improved with a fat sulphureous matter." 



So much for the learned Doctor's theories, at all events he must have 

 been of an inventive turn of mind, and like a good lawyer, he knew how 

 to assign a sufficient number of causes to one effect, so as to have some- 

 thing to fall back on in case of being deprived of his status quo. But at 

 this time of the year, (February,) when the ground is once more covered 

 with an old-fashioned coat of snow, and the roads stopped up with drifts, 

 it seems out of place to be talking of fairy rings and green meadows. 

 It is a long time since we have had so severe a frost, the birds are 

 beginning to be wonderfully tame, and as fear gives place to hunger, they 

 approach nearer to our windows, and become the more easy prey of that 

 itinerant English vagabond the "hedge- popper." 



It has often struck me as strange how the numberless troops of gnats, that 

 appear with the first gleam of sunshine on a fine winter day, are preserved 

 during the cold frosty nights from destruction, and I have often thought that 

 like the chrysalides of moths and butterflies, which are exposed to the action 

 of the weather above ground, and during seasons of cold become so hard as 

 to break like glass, and on the return of warmth relax and live again, so 

 it might be with these insects; and I have had the satisfaction of finding 

 out that with some of them at all events this is the case, for one bright 

 day last January I observed several flying up and down the panes of my 

 window enjoying the warmth. Towards the afternoon a very sharp frost 

 set in, and the heat of the room inside began to congeal on the glass, 

 and caught one poor gnat that had been slow in discovering the change 

 in the weather, and held it fast by, the feet. Feeling the cold stiffening 

 around it, it began to kick and struggle, but this only made matters worse, 

 and it was presently fastened down flat on the glass in the most uncom- 

 fortable position, with its wings distorted, and every leg out of place. Next 

 morning I discovered it in the same position, quite hard, and completely 

 frozen through. Presently however the sun began to melt the coating of ice 

 on the window, and I was glad to see the gnat revive with the returning 

 warmth, and fly as briskly as ever up and down the panes. A severe 

 winter like this, which to some is always a dreary season, is ever interesting 

 to the naturalist, from the change wrought in the instincts and habits of 

 animals by the inclemency of the weather. 



Wild birds are driven inland, and some of those that dwell around us 



