The snow still remained in some parts of the wood, where it was very shady, but the fields were quite free from it. The cows, horses, sheep, and hogs, went into the woods, and sought their food, which was as yet very trifling.
March the 3d. The Swedes call a species of little birds, Snofogel, and the English call it Snow-bird. This is Dr. Linnæus’s Emberiza hyemalis. The reason why it is called snow-bird is because it never appears in summer, but only in winter, when the fields are covered with snow. In some winters they come in as great numbers as the maize-thieves, fly about the houses and barns, into the gardens, and eat the corn, and the seeds of grass, which they find scattered on the hills.
At eight o’clock at night we observed a meteor, commonly called snow-fire[15]. I have described this meteor in the memoirs of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, see the volume for the year 1752, page 154, 155. [[82]]
Wild Pigeons, (Columba migratoria[16]), flew in the woods, in numbers beyond conception, and I was assured that they were more plentiful than they had been for several years past. They came this week, and continued here for about a fortnight, after which they all disappeared, or advanced further into the country, from whence they came. I shall speak of them more particularly in another place.
March the 7th. Several people told me, that it was a certain sign of bad weather here when a thunder-storm arose in the south or south west, if it spread to the east and afterwards to the north: but that on the contrary, when it did not spread at all, or when it spread both east and west, though it should rise in south or south west, yet it would prognosticate fair weather. To-day it was heard in south west, but it did not spread at all. See the meteorological observations, at the end of this volume.
Till now the frost had continued in the ground, so that if any one had a mind to dig a hole he was forced to cut it through with a pick-ax. However it had not penetrated [[83]]above four inches deep. But to-day it was quite gone out. This made the soil so soft, that on riding, even in the woods, the horse sunk in very deep.
AMERICAN MIGRATORY PIDGEON.
I often enquired among the old Englishmen and Swedes, whether they had found that any trees were killed in very severe winters, or had received much hurt. I was answered, that young hiccory trees are commonly killed in very cold weather; and the young black oaks likewise suffer in the same manner. Nay sometimes black oaks, five inches in diameter, were killed by the frost in a severe winter, and sometimes, though very seldom, a single mulberry-tree was killed. Peach-trees very frequently die in a cold winter, and often all the peach-trees in a whole district are killed by a severe frost. It has been found repeatedly, with regard to these trees, that they can stand the frost much better on hills, than in vallies; insomuch, that when the trees in a valley were killed by frost, those on a hill were not hurt at all. They assured me that they had never observed that the black walnut-tree, the sassafras, and other trees, had been hurt in winter. In regard to a frost in spring, they had observed at different times, that a cold night or two happened often after the trees were [[84]]furnished with pretty large leaves, and that by this most of the leaves were killed. But the leaves thus killed have always been supplied by fresh ones. It is remarkable that in such cold nights the frost acts chiefly upon the more delicate trees, and in such a manner, that all the leaves, to the height of seven and even of ten feet from the ground, were killed by the frost, and all the top remained unhurt. Several old Swedes and Englishmen assured me they had made this observation, and the attentive engineer, Mr. Lewis Evans, has shewn it me among his notes. Such a cold night happened here, in the year 1746, in the night between the 14th and 15th of June, new style, attended with the same effect, as appears from Mr. Evans’s observations. The trees which were then in blossom, had lost both their leaves and their flowers in these parts which were nearest the ground; sometime after they got fresh leaves, but no new flowers. Further it is observable, that the cold nights which happen in spring and summer never do any hurt to high grounds, damaging only the low and moist ones. They are likewise very perceptible in such places where limestone is to be met with, and though all the other parts of the country be not visited by such [[85]]cold nights in a summer, yet those where limestone lies have commonly one or two every summer. Frequently the places where the limestone lies are situated on a high ground; but they suffer notwithstanding their situation; whilst a little way off in a lower ground, where no limestone is to be found, the effects of the cold nights are not felt. Mr. Evans was the first who made this observation, and I have had occasion at different times to see the truth of it, on my travels, as I shall mention in the sequel. The young hiccory-trees have their leaves killed sooner than other trees, in such a cold night, and the young oaks next; this has been observed by other people, and I have found it to be true, in the years 1749 and 1750.
March the 11th. Of the genus of Wood-peckers, we find here all those, which Catesby in his first volume of the Natural History of Carolina, has drawn and described. I shall only enumerate them, and add one or two of their qualities; but their description at large I defer for another occasion.