so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also
plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate: because, on the
very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off by
the severe nights of March or April.

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same inconvenience
with respect to the more tender shrubs from North America; which
they therefore plant under north walls. There should also perhaps
be a wall to the east to defend them from the piercing blasts from
that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be carried into
animal life; for discerning bee-masters now find that their hives
should not in the winter be exposed to the hot sun, because such
unseasonable warmth awakens the inhabitants too early from their
slumbers; and, by putting their juices into motion too soon,
subjects them afterwards to inconveniences when rigorous weather
returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost were, that the
horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper, which injured the
winds of many, and killed some; that colds and coughs were
general among the human species; that it froze under people's beds
for several nights; that meat was so hard frozen that it could not be
spitted, and could not be secured but in cellars; that several
redwings and thrushes were killed by the frost; and that the large
titmouse continued to pull straw lengthwise from the eaves of
thatched houses and barns in a most adroit manner, for a purpose
that has been explained already.*
(* See Letter XLI to Mr. Pennant.)