There are a lot of proverbs in this connection about goose bones and hickory nuts and wild geese, which sound plausible but are never proved. If the birds have all the sense credited to them it is strange that some allow themselves to be caught by an early snowstorm in the fall and decimated. Also it is not uncommon for early migrations in the spring to arrive in the north to be slain by the thousand by a belated blizzard. It is granted that animals and birds, having a far greater sensitiveness than man, occasionally sense a catastrophe some hours before it is evidenced by any visual signs, but seasonal wisdom has not been proved in any one instance and disproved in many. None of the proverbs relating to the animals and birds are to be depended upon. They deceive, much to the regret of all the meteorologists who would welcome any genuine clue to nature of the coming season. Any farmer would be only too glad to keep a menagerie of squirrels and wild geese and toads if only he might be assured by them of the coming seasonal conditions. The proverbs given indicate the range, possibly, but certainly not the full absurdity of the old weather sayings. There are many other proverbs that contain at least a half truth. "Enough blue sky to make a Dutchman's breeches indicates clearing," is one that is true if the wind has changed to the west. If the wind still blows from an easterly quarter blue sky for a Dutchman's whole wardrobe would not insure clear weather. All sayings must be tested many times before they are believed implicitly. "There is always a thaw in January," is about as true a generalization as can be made about things for which generalizations are never strictly in place. Even in Canada the severity of the winter is often broken by a spell of warmer weather with a rain, perhaps, in the dead of winter. In the United States a winter without some break in each of the months would be a most unusual occurrence. So that it is quite reasonable to expect the "January thaw" any time from Christmas until the middle of February. "A late spring never deceives," unless it is so very late, like the phenomenal spring of 1907, that the jump is made, perforce, into summer. That is a cruel deception. What is meant of course is that if the freezing weather continues consistently, well past the average, the likelihood of frost-damage to fruit is slight. There is nothing much worse than for the blossoms to be forced by a period of warm weather early, for there is only a slim chance that it will continue past the danger limit. It is surprising how late frost may occur,--the last date for killing frost in Pennsylvania is about May 10th on the _average_, which makes it possible till June. "The first robins indicate the approach of spring." But certainly not its arrival.