OF SELBORNE. 391 



cause, on the 1st of February a thaw took place, and 

 some rain followed before night ; making good the ob- 

 servation above, that frosts often go off as it were at 

 once, without any gradual declension of cold. On the 

 2nd of February the thaw persisted ; and on the 3rd 

 swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a 

 court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no 

 frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller 

 limbs of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter 

 of curious inquiry. 



Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; 

 for at the same juncture, as the author was informed by 

 accurate correspondents, at Lyndon in the county of 

 Rutland, the thermometer stood at 19 : at Blackburn, 

 in Lancashire, at 19: and at Manchester at 21, 20, and 

 18. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely 

 overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes 

 much greater in the southern than in the northern parts 

 of this kingdom . 



The consequences of this severity were, that in Hamp- 

 shire, at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, 

 and the turnips came forth little injured. The laurels 

 and laurustines were somewhat damaged, but only in 

 hot aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed ; and 

 not half the damage sustained that befell in January, 

 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the 

 south sides were perfectly untouched on their north 

 sides. The care taken to shake the snow day by day 

 from the branches seemed greatly to avail the author's 

 evergreens. A neighbour's laurel-hedge, in a high 

 situation, and facing to the north, was perfectly green 

 and vigorous; and the Portugal laurels remained un- 

 hurt. 



As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were 

 mostly destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather 

 and poachers, were so thinned that few remained to 

 breed the following year. 



