226 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 confounded 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 conscious, poor animals, that the drifts and 

 heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to 

 numbers of them. 



From the 14-th the snow continued to increase, and began to 

 stop the road waggons 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 birth- 

 day, were strangely incommoded : many carriages 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 1 8th passed 

 over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances 

 at the Castle and other inns. 



On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since the 

 frost began ; a circumstance that has been remarked before 

 much in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not 

 very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29, 28, 25, and there- 

 about ; but on the 21st it descended to 20. The birds now 

 began to be in a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed 

 by the season, sky-larks settled in the streets of towns, because 

 they saw the ground was bare ; rooks frequented dunghills close 

 to houses ; and crows watched horses as they passed, and greedily 

 devoured what dropped from them ; hares now came into men's 

 gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as 

 they could find. 



On the 22d the author had occasion to go to London through 

 a sort of Laplandian- scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. But 

 the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance 

 than the country ; for, being bedded deep in snow, the pavement 

 of the streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' 

 feet, so that the carriages ran about without the least noise. 

 Such an exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not 



