124 BRITISH AMERICA.

generally dry and pleasant, but it rarely happens that summer becomes firmly established, without a few cold days occurring after the first warm weather. This change is occasioned by the wind shifting from south to north, or to north-east, which brings down along the sea-coast large fields of ice, and which carries along also the cold evaporations that arise in the hyperborean regions. This interruption seldom lasts for more than three or four days, during which the weather is either dry and raw, or cold and wet. When the wind shifts to the southward, the tem- perature soon changes, as the cold vapours are either driven back, or dissipated by the heat of the sun, which now becomes powerful. In latitudes south of 50° N. the southerly winds, at _ this period, combat and overcome, as it were, those > of the north, and, restoring warmth to the air, fine weather becomes permanent, All the birds common in summer make their appearance early in May, and enliven the woods with their melody ; while the frogs, 6. those American nightingales, or, as they are often called, bog choristers, also strain their evening con— . certs. Vegetation proceeds with surprising quickness; wheat and oats are sown, the fields and deciduous trees assume their verdure; various indigenous and exotic flowers blow; and the smiling face of nature is truly delightful, and in grateful unison with the most agreeable associations. In June, July, and August, the weather is excess- ively hot, sometimes as hot as in the West Indies, the mercury being 90° to 100° Fahrenheit. Showers