a year's weather. 285 



We noticed sixteen additional species of plants in flower, 

 our total of recorded flowers seen to the end of March being fifty- 

 species. Though on the r 2th and 17th we saw flocks of peewits, 

 and on the 12th a flock of starlings, a dead bird from which came 

 into our hands in fine condition, the progressiveness of spring was 

 everywhere apparent, the bulbed buttercups were on view with the 

 pilewort, and the sloes were whitening their gnarled bushes ; the 

 humble bees were on their vital errands, and several of the early spring 

 migrants carolled their best on hedge and tree. We are pleased to 

 learn that so much interest is taken in these weather notes, but 

 there seems to be an idea that we made Truro rather colder than it 

 could really be last month, by recording so many days on which 

 snow fell. This is perhaps due to the method which has to be 

 pursued in registering snow. If less rain falls than one-hundreth 

 part of an inch on any one day, we do not register that day as wet, 

 as by agreement among meteorologists less than this does not 

 constitute a rainy day ; yet an amount of rain differing as much as 

 •01 and 1*51 (we use the figures thus for simplicity merely), or one 

 and a half inches of rain, constitutes in each case a rainy day. An 

 inch of snow measures about one-tenth that bulk when melted : 

 hence small quantities of snow are not measurable as is rain, so 

 that many records of snowfalls are often eye observations. 



We may add that in Britain snow is scarcely ever absent from 

 our sight, the brightest white clouds in the summer sky are probably 

 ice-crystals displaying optical characters, which even beautify the 

 dome of blue ; such snow, hardened by the wind and falling as 

 hail, exhibits therein either alternating bands of clear crystalline ice 

 and duller snow, or central druses (forgive the word) like those in 

 quartz nodules, common in many parts of Cornwall and Devon. 



April 3rd, 1889. 



It is three years since we had in Truro so heavy a rainfall in 

 April 3 its total of 2'i7-inches fell in twenty days, being, with 

 three exceptions, all proverbial April showers. The sun shone 

 on 24 days. The rainfall in April, 1888, was 1 ^-inches, nearly 

 half-an-inch less than the same month this year ; and the rainfall 

 throughout Britain was below a ten years' average also. We are still 



