154 PROOFS FROM PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 
habitat of myrtles, notwithstanding that Poets have 
so much, so habitually insisted on it in support of 
the mildness of our air. In the same spirit also, they 
have upheld that doctrine by asserting that a kind 
of myrtle grew wild with us. The Myrica gale 
however, though termed in some places the Dutch 
or Bog myrtle, and with us Devonshire myrtle, is a 
plant wholly different from the garden myrtle, and 
so far from proving mildness or serenity of atmos¬ 
phere, grows by preference in moorish elevated 
ground,—Holne Chace for instance. There too, 
not countenancing the genial air, the property of 
the atmosphere of the coast, it blooms and diffuses 
its aromatic odour under the austerities of the 
moorland breeze. The aloe , a cultivated plant, is 
another instance collateral with the myrtle and 
geranium, shewing the genial character of the air of 
South Devon taken generally . It has been a 
common remark with travellers passing into Devon 
from the more eastern counties in spring, how much 
forwarder our vegetation is than theirs. 
A far more decisive proof of this character than 
those afforded by plants—so extensively liable to 
death from sudden frosts, is to be gained from 
birds. Several species of songster possessed of 
great hilarity, and readily acted on by stimuli, in¬ 
dulge us with their vernal notes at various periods 
of the winter,—cheering the gloom which so 
generally characterizes that season, and leading us 
momentarily to entertain the hope that “ the time 
of the singing of birds is come,” though in fact, ex¬ 
perience teaches us directly after, that a severe and 
perhaps long frost might presently supervene and 
stop these melodies. In another place I have en¬ 
tered into full particulars of this phenomenon 
resulting from the peculiarity of our climate here 
mentioned. In such years (the generality) as re¬ 
markable cessations of the winter’s cold occur, 
