CORRESPONDENCE. 
363 
the 14th of January; earliest commencement in that long period, Dec. 4,1735; 
latest, Feb. 13, 1766. The Robin has been unusually mute, possibly from the 
prevalence of the late high winds. The 44 nice, modest, crimson-tipped flower’’ 
has dared the blasts, and raised its pretty head to deck the scarce green fields ; 
truly a 44 bonnie gem ” in this dearth-time of vegetable beauty; for, save two or 
three withered flowers of last season, scarcely any are now to be found in this 
part of 44 Nature’s gardenthough the golden blossoms of the Furze ( Ulex Euro¬ 
peans), with its 44 countless spears valiantly set,” look as lovely and brilliant as 
when the great Linnaeus fell upon his knees, and thanked God that he had lived 
to see so beautiful a plant. 
“ When January spreads a pall of snow 
O’er*the dead face .of th’ undistinguish’d earth,” 
fewer objects of interest present themselves to the naturalist than at any other 
period of the year; yet we will not 
*• Dispraise the pure and spotless form of the sharp time,” 
for it is an enlivening healthy month; the new year has dawned; the deep 
sleep of stern Winter is passing away, and the early vegetable world begins to 
exhibit symptoms of returning life ;—and who does not hail with pleasure 44 the 
firstling of the Winter year,” the pale Primrose ? 
A Summer colony of Rooks belonging to this place, I observed, paid their first 
visit to their old nesting-trees on the 16th ; and, whether excited to anger by the 
destructive effects of the gale of wind on Monday the 7th, or roused to jealousy 
by the intrusion of their Ash-coloured friends, the Hooded Crows, whilst 44 choosing 
their partners and places” for the Spring, they were unusually clamorous, making 
the noises, I believe, peculiar to this time of the year. I think these birds are 
the most amusing, as well as the most sagacious and useful of the feathered 
tribes; a few of them, at that time, diligently seeking their morning meal, with 
one eye upon their feculent feast, and the other upon your behaviour, will give a 
degree of interest to the most dreary landscape. When I see a juvenile Crow- 
keeper, sitting lazily in the sun, or skreening himself under a hedge from the blast, 
whilst the busy 44 nigritudes ” are getting a good meal, I generally reward his 
neglect; a virtue and a blessing to them, equal to the most refined humanity. 
Two Starlings have already revisited their old nesting-nook in a wall, where I 
see them almost every fine day. 
As you hinted at p. 215, Mr. Murphy has made another 44 lucky hit” at the 
weather,—how affecting the thermometer of his pocket , he best knows. Is there 
not something more than 44 luck” in this ? If not, he has, as they say in Norfolk 
of a fortunate man, 44 Old Nick’s share and his own!” On the morning after 
his coldest day, I was delighted, during a stroll over the fens,®to witness the magic 
VOL. iv.—NO. xxxi. 3 B 
