of the earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in
promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a
freezing to a thawing state, is manifest, from this observation, viz.
Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by
eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the
earth, except in several places in Bushy Park, where there were
drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to
lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry; as also where
elm-pipes lay under ground: a plain proof this, that those drains
intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater
depths below them: for the snow lay where the drain had more than
four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch,
dies, and the tops of walls.' See Hales's Haemastatics, p. 360.
Quaere.-- Might not such observations be reduced to domestic use,
by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells
about houses; and in Roman stations and camps lead to the finding
of pavements, baths and graves, and other hidden relics of curious
antiquity ?)

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild
fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in
the summer; such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have
discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty
are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they
love to make excursions: and in particular, in the dry summer of
1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such a
degree, that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and
sometimes thirty brace in a day.

But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct,