In South Wiltshire the constant observation is that if droppes doe hang upon the hedges on Candlemas-day that it will be a good pease yeare. It is generally agreed on to be matter of fact; the reason perhaps may be that there may rise certain unctuous vapours which may cause that fertility. [This is a general observation: we have it in Essex. I reject as superstitious all prognosticks from the weather on particular days.—JOHN RAY.] At Hullavington, about 1649, there happened a strange wind, which did not onely lay down flatt the corne and grasse as if a huge roller had been drawn over it, but it flatted also the quickset hedges of two or three grounds of George Joe, Esq.-It was a hurricane. Anno 1660, I being then at dinner with Mr. Stokes at Titherton, news was brought in to us that a whirlewind had carried some of the hay-cocks over high elmes by the house: which bringes to my mind a story that is credibly related of one Mr. J. Parsons, a kinsman of ours, who, being a little child, was sett on a hay-cock, and a whirlewind took him up with half the hay-cock and carried him over high elmes, and layd him down safe, without any hurt, in the next ground. Anno 1581, there fell hail-stones at Dogdeane, near Salisbury, as big as a child’s fist of three or four yeares old; which is mentioned in the Preface of an Almanack by John Securis, Maister of Arts and Physick, dedicated to ….. Lord High Chancellor. He lived at Salisbury. ’Tis pitty such accidents are not recorded in other Almanacks in order for a history of the weather. Edward Saintlow, of Knighton, Esq. was buried in the church of Broad Chalk, May the 6th, 1578, as appeares by the Register booke. The snow did then lie so thick on the ground that the bearers carried his body over the gate in Knighton field, and the company went over the hedges, and they digged a way to the church porch. I knew some ancient people of the parish that did remember it. On a May day, 1655 or 1656, being then in Glamorganshire, at Mr. Jo. Aubrey’s at Llanchrechid, I saw the mountaines of Devonshire all white with snow. There fell but little in Glamorganshire. From the private Chronologicall Notes of the learned Edward Davenant, of Gillingham, D.D.:—“On the 25th of July 1670, there was a rupture in the steeple of Steeple Ashton by lightning. The steeple was ninety-three feet high above the tower; which was much about that height. This being mending, and the last stone goeing to be putt in by the two master workemen, on the 15th day of October following, a sudden storme with a clap of thunder tooke up the steeple from the tower, and killed both the workmen in nictu oculi. The stones fell in and broke part of the church, but never hurt the font. This account I had from Mr. Walter Sloper, attorney, of Clement’s Inne, and it is registred on the church wall.” [The inscription will be found in the Beauties of Wiltshire, vol. iii. page 205. It fully details the above circumstances.—J. B.]