5 oo ^Appendix 



spiculte, floating in all directions, like atoms in a sunbeam let into a dark room. 

 We thought them at first particles of the rime falling from my tall hedges ; but 

 were soon convinced to the contrary, by making our observations in open places 

 where no rime could reach us. 



Note. This is not uncommon in Westmoreland and Cumberland. I have 



myself noticed it often in hard frosts. 



Vol. II. p. 1 1 1 [382]. The occasion of this clammy appearance seems to be this: 

 that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and meadows and gardens are 

 drawn up in the day by a brisk evaporation, and then in the night fall down again 

 with the dews, in which they are entangled ; that the air is strongly scented, and 

 therefore impregnated with the particles of flowers in summer weather, our senses 

 will inform us ; and that this clammy sweet substance is of the vegetable kind we 

 may learn from bees, to whom it is very grateful : and we may be assured that it 

 falls in the night, because it is always first seen in warm still mornings. 



Note. This is now known to be the saccharine excrement of the Aphides. 

 It is a true sugar, no wonder therefore, that though not directly vegetable, the bees 

 are fond of it. 



FOOD OF THE RINGDOVE. 



Vol. II. p. 178 [406]. One of my neighbours shot a ringdove on an evening as it 

 was returning from feed and going to roost. When his wife had picked and drawn 

 it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These 

 she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, 

 culled and provided in this extraordinary manner. 



Note. A plate of greens found in the craw of a ringdove ! ! A peck of turnip- 

 tops would, when boiled, make little more. 



Vol. II. p. 181 [407]. Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey when 

 urged on by hunger, I have seen several instances ; particularly when shooting in 

 the winter in company with two friends, a woodcock flew across us closely pursued 

 by a small hawk ; we all three fired at the woodcock instead of the hawk, which, 

 notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it, continued its pursuit of the 

 woodcock, struck it down and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered. 



Note. A most extraordinary fact of this kind I was myself witness to, in 

 Germany, in the excessive, cold, vile winter of 1799. A flock of house sparrows 

 pounced down on a bone, as it was a-gnawing by a large dog near a dunghill and 

 by united force carried it off. The dog drew back frightened, and growled. On 

 the day before, near Zelle, I saw a crow attack another crow, kill it and eat it. 



S. T. COLERIDGE. 



