260 



Burton : Snow Every Month in England. 



The sweeping-net proved useless for collecting insects. 

 I could get nothing worth sending to Mr. Thornley. Mr. J. 

 Eardley Mason's report represents a day's want of work. It 

 runs as follows : — The only insects noted by me were — Coleby, 

 one Vanessa id (Peacock Butterfly), the Larger and Smaller 

 White Butterflies, and the Bug Tetraphleps vittata Fieb., one 

 specimen off spruce fir at Boothby GrafToe. 



NOTE on METEOROLOGY. 



Occurrence of Snow every Month in England.— An Englishman, 

 when asked why he lived abroad the greater part of his time, replied, 'I can 

 do with your winters very well but I can't stand the rigours of an English 

 summer.' Well, we certainly have a somewhat roug-h and fitful climate; 

 enough to justify the American's description of it as ' no climate at all, only 

 a number of samples' ; but it may surprise some people to hear that snow 

 falls, occasionally, in our favoured land, in every single month of the year. 

 Let us not quarrel with our climate, however, but ' live up to it ' and be 

 thankful', for it is one of the causes of England's aptitude. 



No need is there to speak of the colder period, from October to May, 

 when snowstorms are prevalent, and it is scarcely necessary to allude to 

 June, as snow is at least an occasional visitor during that month ; but when 

 we come to the other three — July, August, and September — snow in these 

 months is of rare occurrence. The ' dog days ' are not usually associated 

 with snow, nor are the mellowing days of September; but, though occurring 

 seldom and at rare intervals, records of snow in each of these months exist. 



Looking through my diary from the beginning of the year 1852 to the 

 present time, I find one record, and one only, for each of the two months 

 July and August, and several for September.. . 



In 1888 the month of June had been extremely cold and wet, very little 

 hay had been cut, and the coming in of July did not break the spell; for 

 the same bad weather lasted through the whole of that month, and on the 

 nth snowstorms occurred, as the newspapers of the day recorded, 'in the 

 Lake District, in Notts., Derbyshire, and near London at Norwood.' Most 

 of the hay was spoiled, and by the 31st of July a great deal had not been cut. 



Passing on to August — just ten years later — in 1898, on the 8th of that 

 month, I have the following record, taken again from the newspapers : 

 ' To-day snow falling in the Anglesey district, covering the land for miles.' 



In September I have several accounts of snow in my 'diary.' The 

 earliest in 1856, at Uppingham in Rutlandshire, where I was then living, 

 and where, on the 22nd of the month, I recorded : ' Snow and heavy rain.' 

 The next entry is in 1893, at Gainsborough, when, on the 29th of the same 

 month, after several very cold days, with the thermometer down to within 

 three degrees of freezing, ' a thunderstorm, with rain and snow, passed 

 over the town, bringing the long spell of summer, which had lasted nearly 

 seven months, to an end.' In September 1899, the following entries occur, 

 all relating to Gainsborough : On the 22nd, ' Very heavy wind with snow ' ; 

 on the 27th, ' Snowing a little' ; and again on the 30th, 'Snow and heavy 

 rains with thunder in many parts.' 



I do not of course suppose that the above are the only occasions of snow 

 falling during the months of July, August, and September ; there are 

 doubtless others, but when we reflect how local and transient the fall would 

 be during the summer season, and how few would observe it at all, and of 

 these few, how few again would take the least interest in it ; we cannot 

 wonder at the poverty of the record. Still, the above extracts are sufficient 

 to prove that in England no month of the year is absolutely free from snow. 

 — F. M. BURTON, Highfield, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. 



Naturalist, 



