osely related to meteorological conditions,
unction of character, and a flow of animal spirits, too; and I suspect
that much of the dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as the
thin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rain
enough, but not equability of temperature or moisture,--no steady,
abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain it
is said to rain on an average three days out of four the year through;
yet the depth of rainfall is no greater than in this country, where it
rains but the one day out of four. John Bull shows those three rainy
days both in his temper and in his bodily habit; he is better for them
in many ways, and perhaps not quite so good in a few others: they make
him juicy and vascular, and maybe a little opaque; but we in this
country could well afford a few of his negative qualities for the sake
of his stomach and full-bloodedness.

We have such faith in the virtue of the rain, and in the capacity of
the clouds to harbor and transport material good, that we more than
half believe the stories of the strange and anomalous things that have
fallen in showers. There is no credible report that it has ever yet
rained pitchforks, but many other curious things have fallen. Fish,
flesh, and fowl, and substances that were neither, have been picked up
by veracious people after a storm. Manna, blood, and honey, frogs,
newts, and fish-worms, are among the curious things the clouds are
supposed to yield. If the clouds scooped up their water as the flying
express train does, these phenomena could be easier explained. I myself
have seen curious things. Riding along the road one day on the heels of
a violent summer tempest, I saw the ground swarming with minute hopping
creatures. I got out and captured my hands full. They proved to be
tree-toads, many of them no larger than crickets, and none of them
larger than a bumblebee. There seemed to be thousands of them. The mark
of the tree-toad was the round, flattened ends of their toes. I took
some of them home, but they died the next day. Where did they come
from? I imagined the violent wind swept them off the trees in the woods
to windward of the road. But this is only a guess; maybe they crept out
of the ground, or from under the wall near by, and were out to wet
their jackets.

I have never yet heard of a frog coming down chimney in a shower. Some
circumstantial evidence may be pretty conclusive, Thoreau says, as when