280 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



circumstance strangely overbalance latitude, and render the cold 

 sometimes much greater in the southern than the northern parts 

 of this kingdom. 



The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at 

 the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips 

 came forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines were some- 

 what damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens were 

 quite destroyed ; and not half the damage sustained that befell in 

 January 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the 

 south sides were perfectly untouched on their north sides. The 

 care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches 

 seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A neighbour's 

 laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was 

 perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained 

 unhurt. 



As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly 

 destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, 

 were so thinned that few remained to breed the following year. 



LETTER LXIII. 



As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I 

 trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and especially 

 when I promise to say no more about the severities of winter after 

 I have finished this letter. 



The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer 

 very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 2 8' 5 came on a 

 vast .snow, which continued all that day and the next, and most 

 part of the following night : so that by the morning of the 9th the 

 works of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be 

 impassable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches without 

 any drifting. In the evening of the Qth the air began to be so 

 very sharp that we thought it would be curious to attend to the 

 motions of a thermometer ~ } we therefore hung out two, one made 



