S64 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
works of the frost during the night. The river, a very swift stream, was covered 
with rough ice full one inch and a half or two inches thick, an unprecedented 
occurrence in so short a time. The icy fabric on some of the drains was most 
beautiful. One exhibiting, for about fifty yards, a smooth transparent covering, 
as clear as though the tutelary genius of the bogs had cast a sheet of glass over 
it, to protect the plants below from the intense cold; another showed a marbled 
pavement, beautifully veined—a fit material for a Russian Empress’s Winter 
palace—where the water was gently rising over the already frozen surface; the 
new ice, shooting into every fantastic form, looked like a crystal bed, sparkling 
in the faint sun-beams. But the wind changed, rain followed, and the fairy 
fabric vanished almost as quickly as it came. Since the disappearance of that 
frost, I have started several species of water-insects fr6m the pool’s surface, and 
have caught the Plunger-beetle ( Dgt.iscus marginalis ), Boat-fly ( Notonecta 
glauca ), two kinds of Water-bugs, the latter moving on the water very slug¬ 
gishly, and larva of different kinds. Can you inform me of a good work for 
accurate information respecting the habits and transformations of these predatory 
creatures ? I think Buffon says they feed on mud ! I have kept a variety of 
them, including Hydrophilus piceus and Nepa cinerea , and find they do much 
better on fresh-water Leeches, Water Snails, and the larva of the Dragon-fly. 
My tame Turtle Doves began to coo on the 18th for the first time. 
I am fully aware that these my undigested comments on the past month are 
not worthy of insertion in The Naturalist; yet I am induced to send them, in 
hopes of seeing a suggestion from your pen, to some of your junior readers, of a 
plan of noting, in a corner of your Journal, the first appearance of the Spring 
wild flowers, the arrival of the Nightingale, Cuckoo, and Swallows, with other 
indications of the vernal season, in their respective neighbourhoods. 
The number for February is now before me, with an admirable engraving of 
the portrait of Mr. H. C. Watson. I think it the best of the three already 
issued. 
I have read Mr. Rylands’s article on Papilio podalirius with much interest, 
hoping to find one of my eight specimens of the “Swallow-tail Butterflies,” 
captured in the plantation near here, of that rare kind; but I fear not. Possibly 
he would favour us with a plate and description of that beautiful creature. 
I am happy in being able to add, by way of conclusion, that I have recom¬ 
mended your Miscellany to a former subscriber to Rennie’s Field Naturalist , 
who was not before aware of its existence. 
I am, Dear Sir, 
Sincerely and respectfully yours, 
Stoke , Norfolk , Richard Pigott. 
Feb. 2, 1839, 
