344 



From a newspaper cutting of a letter, signed John Thomson, Tweedside, 



June 2nd, 1889 :— 



' Oak and ash. The rhyme varies in words, but its meaning is always the 



same, thus — 



When buds the oak before the ash. 

 You'll only have a summer splash ; 

 When buds the ash before the oak, 

 You'll surely have a summer soak. 



That is, oak and soak rhyme together, and ash and splash. — G. A. H. 



The appearance of the ash in this part of the borders raust be very different 

 from that which it presents in North Radnorshire as described by Mr. G. A. Haig. 

 Here it is almost impossible to state with rigorous exactness whether the oak or 

 the ash has priority this season. A great many trees of both species as yet show 

 scarcely any signs of energetic vitality, while an equal number are well advanced 

 in frondescence, oaks and ashes vying with each other. On the borders the 

 rhyme runs 



The ash before the oak, 



Choke, choke, choke ; 



The oak before the ash. 



Splash, splash, splash. 



Considerable weight attaches to arboreal and other signs in this jwrt of the 

 country, and had the ash been so advanced as it is in North Radnorshire, instead 

 of a wet summer, as anticipated by Mr. Haig, a very dry season would have been 

 confidently looked for. 



The President then made a few remarks on the peculiarity of the present 

 season, — saying that the three spring months of March, April, and ISIay, of 1S89, 

 were wetter than any corresponding j^eriod since observations were first taken in 

 this county in 1818,— the amount being as under : — 



Total inches. Rainy days. 



March 3'28 ... IS 



April .. 5-64 ... 22 



May 3-81 ... 18 



12-73 58 



or more than double the average fall, the fall in April being three times the usual 

 quantity. Another .striking fact had been the absence of frost. Since March 2Gth 

 there had been no frost at Ross at 4ft. from the ground. During May, the lowest 

 temperature in the screen was 42 '4, on May 1st and 2nd ; this appears to be un- 

 paralleled, and pei-haps e.xplains the unusual prevalence of insect life which, in 

 some places, has been so destructive. 



POSTCRIPT. 



Whilst this v(.iluuie is in the press, 1892, the following observations taken 

 from a letter by one John Arkle, of Lancaster, published in the Naturalists' 

 Gazette for July, 1891, page 53, are thought worthy of a place here :— 



