80 PLINY'S NATURAL HTSTOEY, [BookXVIIL 



Vergiliae, or the third day before the ides of November, as 

 already stated, 35 and they carefully observe it, for it is a con- 

 stellation very easily remarked in the heavens, and warns us 

 to resume our winter clothes. 36 Hence it is, that immediately 

 on its setting, the approach of winter is expected, and care is 

 taken by those who are on their guard against the exorbitant 

 charges of the shop-keepers, to provide themselves with an 

 appropriate dress. If the Vergilise set with cloudy weather, 

 it forebodes a rainy winter, and the prices of cloaks 37 imme- 

 diately rise ; but if, on the other hand, the weather is clear at 

 that period, a sharp winter is to be expected, and then the 

 price of garments of other descriptions is sure to go up. But 

 as to the husbandman, unacquainted as he is with the phse- 

 nomena of the heavens, his brambles are to him in place of 

 constellations, and if he looks at the ground he sees it covered 

 with their leaves. This fall of the leaves, earlier in one place 

 and later in another, is a sure criterion of the temperature of 

 the weather ; for there is a great affinity between the effects 

 produced by the weather in this respect, and the nature of the 

 soil and climate. There is this peculiar advantage, too, in the 

 careful observation of these effects, that they are sure to be 

 perceptible throughout the whole earth, while at the same time 

 they have certain features which are peculiar to each individual 

 locality. A person may perhaps be surprised at this, who does 

 not bear in mind that the herb pennyroyal, 38 which is hung up 

 in our larders, always blossoms on the day of the winter sol- 

 stice ; so firmly resolved is Nature that nothing shall remain 

 concealed from us, and in that spirit has given us the fall of 

 the leaf as the signal for sowing. 



Such is the true method of interpreting all these phenomena, 

 granted to us by Nature as a manifestation of her will. It 

 is in this way that she warns us to prepare the ground, makes 

 us a promise of a manure, as it were, in the fall of the leaves, 

 announces to us that the earth and the productions thereof are 

 thus protected by her against the cold, and warns us to hasten 

 the operations of agriculture. 



35 In B. ii. c. 47. 



36 " Vestis institor est." This passage is probably imperfect. 



87 " Lacemarum." 5 * "Puleium." See B. ii. c. 41. 



