This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Hare Hunting.
75

reaſon to maintain that the froſt fixes, covers, and preſerves them. Whether this is done by intercepting their aſcent, and precipitating them to the ground by the groſs particles of frozen dew, or whether by ſheathing them and protecting them from the penetrating air, (as the good Wives preſerve their potted meats and pickles,) I leave to the Learned; but the facts are certain, and confirmed by experience. We have, therefore, only to take notice, by the way, that the hoar-froſt is very often of ſhort continuance, changeable, and uncertain, both as to its time and place of failing; and hence all theſe difficulties are eaſily reſolved. Let the Huntſman, as foon as he is out of bed, examine but the glaſs windows, which commonly diſcover whether any hoar-froſt has fallen, what time it came, and in what condition of continuance, or going off, it is for the preſent. If it appears to have fallen at two, three, or four in the morning, (ſuppoſe in the month of October, and other times of the year muſt be judged of by proportion,) and to be going off about break of day, it may then be expected

that