FEBRUARY. 
2 3 
floods. It is, of course, needless and inadvisable in the short 
space at our disposal to particularise individual years : it will 
suffice, then, as a proof of the rainy character that February 
bears when we give the following figures — eighteen, twenty-two, 
twenty-one, twelve, nineteen, twelve, fifteen, twenty-two — as the 
number of days of rainfall in the Februaries of eight consecutive 
years. On the Republican reconstruction of the calendar in 
France, in the year 1792, the twelve months received names 
descriptive of their characteristics: thus January was Nivose, 
the snowy month ; March, Ventose, the windy month ; and 
February became Pluviose, the month of rain. 
The second day of the month is the Feast of the Purification 
of the Virgin Mary, more commonly called Candlemas Day, from 
the great number of candles burnt in the services of that day, 
increased devotion and a greater consumption of wax being in 
some peculiar way then held to go together. While this was the 
case in matters ecclesiastical, our frugal forefathers devised, and 
acted on, the adage — “ You should on Candlemas Day throw 
candles and candlesticks away,” as it was held that the lengthen- 
ing days rendered such artificial light a wasteful extravagance. 
As there are barely ten hours of daylight on Candlemas Day, our 
ancestors must have sacrificed a good deal to principle, and 
might, one would suppose, have found employment that would 
at least have been profitable enough to have paid its expenses 
for the cost of light. “ If Candlemas Day be dry and fine,” it 
was held that more winter was yet in store ; but that if it were 
wet, then the winter was almost over. The badger, our fore- 
fathers believed, or at all events said, peeped out of his winter 
quarters on Candlemas Day, and if he saw snow on the ground 
settled down again to another spell of sleep ; but if the sun were 
shining, made the necessary domestic arrangements for a speedy 
termination of the hybernating period. 
Though we can scarcely say in February that “ Winter is 
worne that was the floure’s bale,” yet does Nature to some 
degree “dress with humid hands her wreath again,” and gives 
us pleasant foretaste of verdant spring and flowery summer. 
In sheltered spots the primrose may be found, and the snow- 
drops, “ fair maids of February,” as they were once named, are 
in full flower in the copses and meadows. Some seasons are 
naturally more forward than others, but we find in our record of 
such things that we have also come across the wood anemone, 
the marsh marigold, furze, daffodils, the bulbous crowfoot, the 
celandine, coltsfoot, and some few other flowers in our February 
rambles ; while the brimstone butterfly, equally striking from 
the beauty of form of its wings and the brilliancy of their 
colouring, flits by us in the sunshine. “ On mossy pale the red- 
breast tunes his lay,” and the sweet singer of Yuletide is as 
welcome as ever ; but now the woods and hedgerows grow vocal 
with the song of the thrush and blackbird and other songsters, 
while overhead — 
