APRIL 163 



wind never comes, many of the beeches also have made no start 

 at all. The butterflies, however, know that spring is at hand, 

 for already I have seen peacocks, large sulphurs, and two speci- 

 mens of the scarce great tortoiseshell. To-day also I heard the 

 cuckoo for the first time this year. 



April 2*]. Last night there came a fine and welcome shower, 

 for the country was parching in the harsh cold wind, followed this 

 morning by a blessed change in the weather to the conditions of 

 an English spring, as it is fondly imagined by poets and persons 

 living in the Colonies. The birds seem to appreciate this un- 

 expected improvement, for they are all singing madly, especially 

 on the Vineyard Hills. 



To-day we have thrashed out our last little stack of wheat, 

 which produced about twenty-five coomb of grain, and notwith- 

 standing that it was built upon vermin-proof iron supports a 

 large quantity of mice. By the way, I wonder how mice in a 

 stack of this sort, which they cannot well leave, manage for water. 

 Of course, when rain falls, they can climb to the thatch and 

 drink, but sometimes there are long periods without any rain, and 

 what do they do then, feeding, as they must, upon the dryest of 

 dry foods? Unless they are able to live without moisture, 

 which seems improbable, I cannot imagine a solution of the 

 problem. 1 The wheat which we thrashed at Bedingham yesterday 

 proved disappointing so far as quantity is concerned, as we got 

 about twenty coomb less than we expected. In this neighbour- 

 hood, however, it is the almost universal experience of farmers that 

 last season was a very bad one for wheat. It is a grain which can 

 stand, and even enjoys, drought, but in 1897 it seems to have had 

 too much of it. 



April 28. This morning there was a soft and gentle rain, 

 which stopped about an hour after midday. The election excite- 

 ment is beginning. The Conservative candidate is my friend, 



1 A correspondent suggests that dew is the solution. 



M3 



