iFi

Coin pton Mackenzie

THE almost total eclipse of the sun was a failure as an entertainment. It was asking too much of the public to be impressed by an hour of eclipse by tile moon When the wretched sun had been eclipsed by clouds since the beginning of May except for a brilliant three weeks in the West of Scotland and the 'Hebrides.. I do not remember such a cold and sodden summer since 1888. We ought to have been hearing of ` rains ' of frogs, in different parts of the country. I saw one of these at Eridge in that year. Thousands of tiny frogs covered the ground of a lane for at least fifty yards so thickly that it was impossible not to tread upon them: more remarkably still they covered the hedges on either side of it to the top, and even roadside trees. No wonder the myth of myriads of frogs being swept up by a whirlwind into the clouds and released in rain became current. I was only live and a half years old when I beheld this sight, but the memory of it in that dripping green June is as vivid as the dripping green June we have just endured sixty-six years later. I can recall my childish sorrow at having to squash the poor little frogs and my tiresome old nurse walking ruthlessly on as if -she were flouting one of the plagues of Egypt and showing Pharaoh himself how to behave. I ought to have mentioned that ' rain ' of frogs when a few weeks, ago I was recounting the phenomena I had been lucky enough to witness.

That ' Sidelight ' brought me a most interesting correspon- dence. One letter reinforced my belief that I really did see an adder offer her mouth as a refuge for her young—at which herpetologists scoff :

` I have witnessed a similar scene at Liphook, Hants, where the young went into the adder's mouth and the adder set off. The adder was then killed and the young re-appeared from its mouth to be killed individually apart from the mother. My friend (who also signs this letter) has witnessed a similar incident with a grass snake. The live young entered the mother's mouth and were carried away. In neither case was it possible for the young to be hidden under the mother as the snake moved away each time.'

I read in some paper the other day that Jupiter was visible during the eclipse. I doubt this, but it may be that Venus was seen from some happy corner of the country where the sky was cloudless. My memory of seeing Venus at Capri in the year 1920 brought two letters which lead meo suppose that the date was in fact 1919.

'This planet is visible in the daylight every nine years. It was once discernible during Napoleon's ride to the Paris Senate and led him to consider it propitious as his star. On that occasion it arrested the attention of the crowd to his amazement and took their glances away from him. It was brilliant enough to be reflected on a white wall.'

That was on August 4. 1802, when Napoleon went to receive the Senate's recognition of him as Consul for life, which had been voted for by an ov,erwhelming majority in a plebiscite.

Now for the second letter:

'During the spring of 1937 I was a midshipman in the battleship Royal Oak engaged on the Spanish patrol in the Mediterranean. One day we were at sea some miles south of Malaga in company with another " R " class battleship, the Royal Sovereign I think, and were engaged in a practice shoot during the forenoon. I was Snotty of the Watch on the bridge at the time.. Suddenly three or four large columns of water . shot up a short distance ahead of us. I remember' thinking that the Royal Sovereign's marksmanship must be pretty poor, When I looked up and saw two aeroplanes flying off into the blue. We had in fact been attackfrai quite unexpectedly and

in earnest by some ill disposed, or perhaps mis:nformed, individual.

'As a result of this attack we closed up the HA guns' crews for the rest of the day. That afternoon the alarm was given, and sure enough there, high in the -ky. was a bright silvery plane glistening in the sunlight. The high angle armament was loaded and brought to bear on the target whilst we all waited to see whether this plane ioo might prove hostile. The moments slipped by. silence fell and tension rose. The plane, however, appeared to keep at extreme range—shadowing no doubt. There were some sheepish faces a few moments later when the Navigator had-to admit that the "enemy plane " was in fact Venus.'

If we go back every nine years front 1937 we shall get 1802. We shall also get 1919 and as I was then in Capri as well as in 1920 it must obviously have been in 1919 that I saw Venus. Readers of the Speetator will soon have a chance of seeing the planet by daylight because it will be .due for its next appearance in 1955, and after this clouded summer we may hope for some clear skies in which to see the phenomenon.

Here is an' extract front a letter about a double moon, or rather in this case a quadruple one: Over forty years ago I was sleeping on the top of a high mound on an island in Lake Mariut, south of Alexandria. I woke curly in the night and saw the full moon low down, but was startled to see three others vertically below it, at approximately even distances. I woke my companion and we decided that the two outside moons were the real moon and its reflection in the water. These were clear cut. The other two were slightly woolly: the upper one being the reflection of the moon on a low bank of mist which was drifting towards us over the lake, and .the other one, the reflection of the reflection,.in the water.'

Two or three correspondents had seen red rainbows, one as recently as WI, May near Biggin Hill in Kent. 1 once managed to discover where' The rainbow ended. That was on the wing of a plane in which I was flying over Mull, and we stayel.m. the end of that rainbevr-ttm-,e.se,r_fyvuiaumeli..f__— have :7•I'Litat-A, perfect rainbow on the sea. is was w e I was flying in a Sunderland from Singapore to Bangkok. It was at three o'clock in the- afternoon under a sky full of majestic white cumulus:

And now to come down to earth:

Your reference to the stoat reminded me of a very odd coincidence. Threç. or four years ago I met a friend in Anglesey who told irethatrthe day before he had seen a stoat doing. its dance in a circle of fascinated birds. The morning after our talk I was driving my car along quiet by-roads near Beatimaris. Rounding a corner I found exactly the same thing happening. As soon as the stoat saw the car it dashed away, but the birds were so bewitched that I could easily have run over them.'

I had never heard of this stoatish achievement and I would give much to see it. Once when driving through the jungle in north Burma I expressed regret to my companion that I had not had the luck to see a leopard yet. I mentioned that driving in a car up Glen Affric I had once expressed a similar regret about not having seen a wild cat, and that I had no sooner spoken than a magnificent specimen bounded across the road in front of us and up the brae on the right. I had just finished this reminiscence when in front of our jeep a leopardess with two cubs bounded across the road and up a brae on the right among the mighty trees. I never saw another all the way from the Brahmaputra to Singapore.