282 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal 

 to numbers of them. 



From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and began to 

 stop the road-waggons and coaches, which could no longer keep 

 on their regular stages : more especially on the western roads, 

 where the fall appears to have been deeper than in the south. 

 The company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth- 

 day, were strangely incommoded : the carriages of many persons, 

 who got on their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, 

 after strange embarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. 

 The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they 

 would shovel them a track to London : but the relentless heaps 

 of snow were too bulky to be removed ; and so the 18th passed 

 over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances 

 at the Castle and other inns. 



On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since the 

 frost began ; a circumstance that has been remarked on before as 

 much in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not 

 very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29, 28, 25, and 

 thereabout : but on the 21st it descended to 20. The birds 

 now began to be in a very pitable and starving condition. 

 Tamed by the season, skylarks settled in the streets of towns, 

 because they saw the ground was bare ; rooks frequented dung- 

 hills close to houses ; and crows watched horses as they passed, 

 and greedily devoured what dropped from them; hares now 

 came into the gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured 

 such plants as they could find. 



On the 2 2nd the author had occasion to go to London through 

 a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. 

 But the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appear- 

 ance than the country; for, being bedded deep in snow, the 

 pavement of the streets could not be touched by the wheels 

 or the horses' feet, so that the carriages ran about without the 

 least noise. Such an exemption from din and clatter was 

 strange, but not pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfort- 

 able idea of desolation : 



" - ipsa silentia terrent." 



" By silence terrified." 



