Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/457

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After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually becomes cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear again towards the decline of the day. The reason seems to be, that the dew, drawn up by evaporation, occasions the clouds; which, towards evening, being no longer rendered buoyant by the warmth of the sun, melt away, and fall down again in dews. If clouds are watched in a still warm evening, they will be seen to melt away and disappear.—.

No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken down remarks, can be aware how much ten days' dripping weather will influence the growth of grass or corn after a severe dry season. This present summer, 1776, yielded a remarkable instance: for till the 30th May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the barley not half out of the ground; but now, June 10th, there is an agreeable prospect of plenty.—.

November 1st, 1787.—The N. aurora made a particular appearance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt, which extended from E. to W. across the welkin: but the moon rising at about ten o'clock, in unclouded majesty, in the E., put an end to this grand, but awful meteorous phenomenon.—.

Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so severe in the island of Sky, that it is remembered by the name of the 'black spring.' The snow, which seldom lies at all, covered the ground for eight weeks, many cattle died, and those that survived were so emaciated that they did not require the male at the usual season."