NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 271 
pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for a short time ; 
or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his people go about 
with prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge the snow from the 
boughs : since the naked foliage will shift much better for itself, 
than where the snow is partly melted and frozen again. 
It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox ; but doubtless the 
more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot aspects; 
not only for the reason assigned above, but also because, thus 
circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the spring, and 
to grow on later in the autumn than they would otherwise do, and 
so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also 
plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate ; because, on the 
very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off 
by the severe nights of March or April. 
Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same incon- 
venience with respect to the more tender shrubs from North 
America, which they therefore plant under north walls. There 
should also perhaps be a wall to the east to defend them from the 
piercing blasts from that quarter. 
This observation might without any impropriety be carried into 
animal life; for discerning bee-masters now find that their hives 
should not in the winter be exposed to the hot sun, because such 
unseasonable warmth awakens the inhabitants too early from their 
slumbers ; and by putting their juices into motion too soon, subjects 
them afterwards to inconveniences when rigorous weather returns. 
The coincidents attending this short but intense frost were, that 
the horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper, which injured the 
winds of many, and killed some; that colds and coughs were 
general among the human species ; that it froze under people’s 
beds for several nights ; that meat was so hard frozen that it could 
not be spitted, and could not be secured but in cellars ; that several 
redwings and thrushes were killed by the frost ; and that the large 
titmouse continued to pull straws lengthwise from the eaves of 
thatched houses and barns in a most adroit manner for a purpose 
that has been explained already.* 
On the 3rd of January, Benjamin Martin’s thermometer within 
doors, in a close parlour where there was no fire, fell in the night 
to 20°, and on the 4th, to 18°, and on the 7th, to 174°, a degree of 
cold which the owner never since saw in the same situation ; and 
he regrets much that he was not able at that juncture to attend his 
* See Letter XLI. to Mr. Pennant 
