62 



MARCH. 



and there over the landscape. The clouds 

 above fly about with a brisker motion,, and 

 the paths under our feet, which yesterday 

 were intolerably miry, become at once solid 

 and dry. The change is surprising. Twelve 

 hours of March air will dry the surface of 

 the earth almost to dustiness, even though no 

 sunshine should be seen ; and " a peck of 

 March dust is worth a king's ransom/' says 

 the old proverb, which we may suppose means, 

 that the drying property of March is invalu- 

 able, removing the superabundant humidity, 

 and enabling the husbandman to get in his 

 seeds the hope of summer produce. So 

 speedily does the mire of winter vanish in this 

 month, that country people, who connect their 

 adages, which, though significant are not liter- 

 ally true, with something which makes them 

 partially so, say, "the rooks have picked up 

 all the dirt," because the rooks are now busily 

 employed in building their nests, and use mire 

 to line them, as do magpies too at this period ; 

 who place their thorny halls on the tops of 

 the yet leafless trees, objects conspicuous but 

 secure. 



March is a rude, and sometimes boisterous 



