Iftatme IRotes : 
Zbc Selbome Society’s flDaoastnc. 
No. 14. FEBRUARY 14, 1891. Vol. II. 
FEBRUARY. 
|HOUGH the lover of Nature finds at all seasons objects 
of interest, it is idle to gainsay the fact that the sweet 
spring time, the glorious months of summer, and the 
fruitful autumn, are far richer in these than the brief 
hours of daylight of inclement winter. We therefore welcome 
the advent of February less for its own sake than as a distinct 
and realisable step forward to those brighter, longer days which 
in November or December seemed so hopelessly remote, but 
which each lengthening day now brings within more measurable 
distance. 
The proverbial wisdom and folk-lore of our ancestors have 
clearly established the fact that February ordinarily has an ex- 
ceptional amount of snow or rainfall, and modern experience 
confirms the observations of the past. Our ancestors also amply 
realised the fact, as we must do, that such inclemency of 
weather, whatever personal inconvenience it may cause, is em- 
phatically the right thing in the right place ; hence we find the 
adage, “ Feb, fill the dike, with what thou dost like,” while 
another old saw says, “ February, fill-dike, be it black or be it 
white, but if it be white it’s better to like.” Farmers well know 
what protection to their crops is afforded by a coating of snow. 
Nothing is more common than to see, during a hard winter, 
great injury done to wheat, turnips, or the like in exposed 
places from which the snow has drifted away, while those parts 
which are well covered by it are perfectly unhurt. The plants 
below the snow are usually subject to a temperature very little 
below the freezing point, while those that are exposed suffer a 
far more intense cold not only from the air artrnnd them but 
from the effects of radiation. Hence the Esquimaux takes 
refuge from the biting cold in his hut of snow, not because he 
has read Tyndall or Glaisher on the point, but from the very 
sufficient reason that he finds beneath its shelter the welcome 
warmth that he seeks. 
