THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal 
to numbers of them. 
From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and began to 
stop the road-waggons and coaches, which could no longer keep 
on their regular stages : more 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 : the carriages of many persons, 
who got on their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, 
after strange embarrassments, here met with a ne phis ultra. 
The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they 
would shovel tbem a track to London: but the relentless heaps 
of snow were too bulky to be removed ; and so the 18th passed 
over, leaving tlie 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 on before as 
much in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not 
very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29, 28, 25, and 
thereabout: but on the 21st it descended to 20. The birds 
now began to be in a very pitable and starving condition. 
Tamed by the season, skylarks settled in the streets of towns, 
because they saw the ground was bare ; rooks frequented dung- 
hills close to houses ; and crows watched horses as they passed, 
and greedily devoured what dropped from them ; hares now 
came into the gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured 
such plants as they could find. 
On the 22nd 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 appear- 
ance 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 pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfort- 
able idea of desolation : 
" — — — — — — ipsa silent ia terrent." 
" By silence terrified." 
