The Natural History of Selborne 391 



chilled with water;* and hence dry autumns are seldom 

 followed by rigorous winters. 



January ;th. Snow driving all the day, which was followed 

 by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the i2th, when a prodigi- 

 ous mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the 

 tops of the gates and filling the hollow lanes. 



On the 1 4th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; 

 and thinks he never before or since has encountered such 

 rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were 

 now filled above the tops of the hedges ; through which the 

 snow was driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so 

 striking to the imagination as not to be seen without wonder 

 and pleasure. The poultry dared not to stir out of their 

 roosting- places ; for cocks and hens are so dazzled and con- 

 founded by the glare of snow that they would soon perish 

 without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly in their seats, 

 and would not move till compelled by hunger ; being con- 

 scious poor animals that the drifts and heaps treacherously 

 betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to numbers of them. 



From the i4th the snow continued to increase, and began 

 to stop the road wagons and coaches, which could no longer 

 keep on their regular stages ; and 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 birthday, were strangely incommoded : many car- 

 riages of persons who got in 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 i8th passed over, leaving the 

 company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the Castle 

 and other inns. 



* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly 

 the month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county 

 of Rutland, six inches and a half of rain. And the terrible long frost in 

 1 739-4 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were very high. 



