148 ON THE FOLIATION 



fpring approaches, and experience fupports us 

 in this conclufion j but no body hitherto has 



been 



begin to creep out of their holes, and climb up the plants, 

 you muft leave off digging about vines and take to pruning. 

 That when the artichoak begins to blow, and the grajhop- 

 per chirps upon trees, which, as Theophraftus obferves, was 

 about the fummer folilicc, then goats are in full feafon, &c» 

 That when the fg leaf is about as big as a crow's foot, the 

 time for failing comes on. That when the voice of the 

 crane is heard overhead, then is the time for ploughing. It 

 is true, the poet frequently marks the feafons by the rifings 

 and fettings of the ftars, and as altronomy, bcfides its many 

 important ufes, is conne6led with finer fciences, has feme- 

 thing in it very ftriking to the imagination, and has been 

 cultivated by men, who had leifure to make calendars for ge- 

 neral ufe, it was natural that it fhould get the afcendant over 

 rules furer perhaps in themfelvcs, and more adapted to the 

 purpofe of the hufbandman, but which were deftitute of the 

 advantages abovementioned, and were moil probably looked 

 on only as poetical embellifhments. 



It is wonderfull to obferve the conformity between vege- 

 tation, and the arrival of certain birds of pafTage. I will 

 give one inflance as marked down in a diary kept by me in 

 Norfolk in the year 1755. -^P"^ ^^ ^^th young figs ap- 

 pear, the 17th of the fame month the cuckoo fings. Now 

 the word kocki^ fignifies a cuckoiuy and likewife the young 

 fig, and the reaion given for it is that in Greece thev ap- 

 peared together. I will jufl: add that the fame year i firft 

 found the cuckonjo fi.c-iver in blow the ipth of April. 



To the inftance of coincidence of the appearance of the 

 cucko%Vy and the fruit of the fi.g-treg'm Greece and England, 



i will 



