MARCH 67 



that the poet once asked Dr. Gatty what bird he 

 thought was described in the phrase ; and on Dr. Gatty 

 making a bad guess, he told him it was the kingfisher. 



Why of March, rather than any other month, was 

 the next question, seeing that we have kingfishers with 

 us all the year round ? A writer in the Pall Mall 

 Gazette has solved that puzzle by quoting a stanza from 

 Alcman 



$aXe Sjj'/SdXe KrjpvXos firjv, 

 os T* eVl /ev/iaros av0os a/*' a\Kv6ve<ra'i 7roT/Tat, 

 VT]\eyes rjrop ex^v, d\nrop<pvpos ("iapos opvts. 



To wit 'I would, I would I were a cock kingfisher, 

 which flies over the wave-crest with the hen kingfishers 

 with careless heart, the sea-blue bird of spring.' 



XXIX 



Episodes of the great frost continue to come to hand. 

 Everybody knows the excellence of 'blackface' mutton; 

 but the superior hardiness of the animal 



The hardi- 



which produces it is not often so precisely ness of 

 tested as it was by the following incident, Shee P 

 recorded on the authority of Mr. Maclellan of North 

 Balfern, a farmer well known in the south of Scotland. 

 On February 6th forty blackfaced sheep were buried 

 in a snowdrift, of which thirty-six were dug out with 

 great labour, the remainder being given up as lost. On 

 the 18th the shepherd noticed a small air-hole in a 

 great drift, from which vapour was escaping. Digging 

 down, he succeeded in liberating two of the missing 



