it that, the Great Auk being observed by seamen never to wander beyond soundings, they are wont to regulate their own movements by the bird's, in full assurance of land not being very remote; so that modern sailors pay respect to auguries in the same manner as Aristophanes in his play of the Birds represents those of Greece, over two thousand years ago, to have done

"From birds in sailing men instruction take,

Now lie in port, now sail and profit make."

The STORMY PETREL, Pennant further observes, presages bad weather, and cautions seamen of the approach of a tempest by collecting under the sterns of the ships.

In Smith's Travels published in 1792 is recorded the sighting, off the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, of a sea monster, which came to view several times on the same day and spouted water from its nose to a great height. It was called Caldelia, and said to appear frequently before a storm; and by way of justifying this character, we read that "a storm came on next morning which continued four days." So also Dallaway, in his Constantinople Antient and Modern (1797), notes the superstitious regard paid to the flocks of aquatic birds re sembling swallows that were observed to be flying in a lengthened train from one sea to another, "which, as they are never known to rest, are called Halcyons, and by the French ames damnées.”

Aristander the soothsayer, as Lloyd discourses in his Stratagems of Jerusalem, "in the battell at Arbela, was seen on horsebacke hard by Alexander, apparelled all in white, and a crowne of golde upon his head, encouraging Alexander, by the flight of an EAGLE, the victory should be his over Darius. Both the Greekes, the Romaines, and the Lacedemonians, had theyr soothsayers hard by them in their warres.” "If a BITTOURN fly over his head by night, he makes his will," says Bishop Hall of the superstitious man; and in Wild's Iter Boreale we read

"The peaceful KING-FISHERS are met together
About the decks, and prophesie calm weather."

SPIDERS, SNAKES, EMMETS, BEES, LAMBKINS, AND WEATHER'S BELL

It is an article of vulgar belief that it is unlucky to kill spiders. It were idle to suppose that it originated in the Scotch proverb that "dirt bodes luck," though this notion, it is certain, frequently serves as an apology for the laziness of housewives in not destroying their cobwebs. The superstition, in fact, has been transmitted from the magicians of ancient Rome, who, as Pliny informs us, derived presages and prognostications from the mode in which they wove their webs According to the treatise of Bartholomæus De Proprietatibus Rerum (1536), the old naturalist "saythe Spynners ben tokens of Divynation and of knowing what wether shalfal, for oft by weders that shaita some spin and weve higher or lower. Also he saythe that multytute of Spynners is taken of moche reyne."

Willsford's revelation of Nature's Secrets in this department is to

the effect that spiders emerge from their retreats against wind or rain, "Minerva having made them aware of an approaching storm." Park annotates that "small spiders, termed money-spinners, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed, or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed;" and in Defoe's Memoirs of Duncan Campbel we read of people thinking themselves secure of receiving money, "if, by chance, a little spider fell upon their cloaths." In this connection it will be well to introduce the explanation given of "gossamer" by White of Selborne, who holds that, strange and superstitious as were the notions respecting it in former times, it is indubitably the production of small spiders, which in autumn swarm in the fields in fine weather, “and have a power of shooting out webs from their tails, so as to render themselves buoyant and lighter than air."

"If he see a SNAKE unkilled, he fears a mischief," writes Bishop Hall of the superstitious man; with which may be connected one of the Arcana Microcosmi of Alexander Ross (1652), who says: I have heard of skirmishes between water and land serpents premonstrating future calamities among men." From the latter writer we further learn that "the cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians, and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians, in which above thirty thousand men were slain, were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of emmets;" while Willsford has it hat either a storm, or foul weather of some sort, is presaged by the commonwealth of emmets burying themselves with their eggs, and generally ordering their domestic concerns; "but when Nature seems to stupifie their little bodies, and disposes them to rest, causing them to withdraw into their caverns, lest their industry should engage them by the inconveniency of the season, expect then some foul and winterly weather."

Among the rustic omens enumerated by Gay are the WEATHER'S BELL and the LAMBKIN, together with BEES

Under the month of May Tusser has the lines

"Take heed to thy bees that are ready to swarme :
The losse thereof now is a crowne's worth of harme ;"

upon which Tusser Redivivus has this observation: "The tinkling after them with a warming-pan, frying-pan, or kettle, is of good use to let the neighbours know you have a swarm in the air, which you claim wherever it lights; but I believe of very little purpose to the reclaiming the bees, who are thought to delight in no noise but their

own." The people of Cornwall, in the time of Borlase (1769), used to invoke "the spirit Browny" when their bees swarmed, and believed that by crying "Browny! Browny!" they could prevent them from returning to their former hive, and make them form a new colony. When bees in fair weather do not wander far from their hives, says Willsford, it presages the approach of stormy weather; while rainy weather is signified by wasps, hornets, and gnats biting more eagerly than usual.

THE DEATH-WATCH.

Of the insect so called, whose ticking has been superstitiously regarded as foreboding death in a family, we derive the following account from Wallis' History of Northumberland: "The small scarab (Scarabæus Galeatus pulsator) is frequent among dust and in decayed rotten wood, lonely and retired. It is one of the smallest of the vagipeunia, of a dark brown, with irregular light brown spots, the belly plicated, and the wings under the cases pellucid; like other beetles, the helmet turned up, as is supposed for hearing; and the upper lip hard and shining. By its regular pulsations, like the ticking of a watch, it sometimes surprises those that are strangers to its nature and properties, who fancy its beating portends a family change, and the shortening of the thread of life. Put into a box, it may be heard or seen in the act of pulsation, with a small proboscis against the side of it, for food more probably than for hymenæal pleasure as some have fancied." The formality of this account may well be contrasted with the witty vivacity of Swift, who furnishes, moreover, a charm to avert the omen"A Wood Worm

That lies in old wood, like a Hare in her form,

With Teeth or with Claws it will bite, or will scratch,
And Chambermaids christen this Worm a Death Watch:

Because like a Watch it always cries click:

Then woe be to those in the House who are sick;

For as sure as a Gun they will give up the ghost,

If the Maggot cries click, when it scratches the post.
But a Kettle of scalding hot water injected

Infallibly cures the Timber affected;

The Omen is broken, the danger is over,

The Maggot will die, and the sick will recover."

There are many things, writes Baxter in his World of Spirits, that ignorance causeth multitudes to take for prodigies. "I have had many discreet Friends that have been affrighted with the Noise called a Death-Watch, whereas I have since, near three years ago, oft found by Trial that it is a Noise made upon paper by a little, nimble, running Worm, just like a Louse, but whiter, and quicker; and it is most usually behind a Paper pasted to a Wall, especially to Wainscot and it is rarely, if ever heard, but in the heat of Summer." Immediately after this, however, Baxter relapses into his honest credulity, quoting, on the authority of Melchior Adams, the prodigy of "a great and good man "who had a "clock-watch" that had lain

unused for many years in a chest, but which, “when he lay dying at eleven o'clock, of itself, in that chest, struck eleven in the hearing of many."

In the Memoirs of Duncan Campbel, Defoe ridicules the idea of people being in the most terrible palpitations for months together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, simply because a little worm which breeds in old wainscot, in endeavouring to eat its way out, "makes a noise like the movement of a watch."

The clicking of a death-watch, according to Grose, is an omen of the death of some one in the house in which it is heard.

DEATH OMENS PECULIAR TO FAMILIES.

Grose tells us that many families have, besides general notices of death, particular warnings or notices; some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman dressed in white, who goes shrieking about the house. This apparition is common in Ireland, where it is called Benshea, and the shrieking woman.

According to Pennant, many of the great families in Scotland ha their Dæmon or Genius, who gave them monitions of future events. Thus the family of Rothmurchas had the Bodack au dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kincardines, the spectre of the bloody hand; Gartinbeg House was haunted by Bodach Gartin; and Tulloch Gorms by Maug Monlack, or the girl with the hairy left hand. The Synod gave frequent orders that inquiry should be made into the truth of this apparition; and one or two declared that they had seen one that answered the description.

In the Living Librarie (1621) we read: "There bee some Princes of Germanie that have particular and apparent presages and tokens, full of noise, before or about the Day of their death, as extraordinarie roaring of Lions, and barking of Dogs, fearful noises and bustlings by Night in Castles, striking of Clocks, and tolling of Bels at undue times and howres, and other warnings whereof none could give any Reason."

Delrio has it that, in the castle occupied by a certain family in Bohemia, the spectre of a female habited in mourning appeared before the death of one of the wives of the feudal lords.

In describing the customs of the Highlanders, Pennant relates that in certain places the death of people is supposed to be foretold by the cries and shrieks of Benshi, or the fairy's wife, uttered along the very path by which the funeral is to pass, and what in Wales are called Corpse Candles are often imagined to appear and foretell mortality. In the county of Caermarthen hardly any one dies but some one or other sees his light or candle. A similar superstition prevails among he vulgar in Northumberland, who call it seeing the Waff of the person whose death it heralds.

Wraiths, Grose explains to be the exact figure and resemblance of iving persons, seen not only by friends at a distance, but even by the ersons themselves; of which there are several instances in Aubrey's Miscellanies. These apparitions, which are called Fetches, and in Cumberland Swarths, most commonly appear to distant friends and elations, at the very instant preceding the death of those they repre

sent; sometimes, however, there is a greater interval between the appearance and death.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland we read of the "Fye" giving due warning by certain signs of approaching mortality, and of the "Fye" withdrawing his warning; and of the reply made by a dame aged 99 years to the remark that in the course of nature she could not long survive "Aye, what Fye-token do you see about me?" In Ross-shire we learn that the tradition is that the ghosts of the dying, called "Tasks," could be heard, their cries repeating the moans of the sick; while some even assume the sagacity of distinguishing the voices of departed friends. The corpses, we learn, follow the tracks led by the Tasks to the places of interment; and the early or the late fulfilment of the prediction is made to depend on the period of the night at which the Task is heard.

The royal author of Dæmonology writes: "In a secret murther, if the dead Carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the Murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the Blood were crying to Heaven for revenge of the murtherer;" and in the Living Librarie (1621) we read: "Who can alleage any certaine and firme reason why the blood runnes out of the Wounds of a Man murdred, long after the murder committed, if the Murderer be brought before the dead Bodie? Galeotus Martius, Jeronymus Maggius, Marsilius Ficinus, Valleriola, Joubert, and others have offered to say something thereof." To this succeeds the inquiry: "Who (I pray you) can shew why, if a desperat Bodie hang himselfe, suddenly there arise Tempests and Whirlewinds in the Aire?"

In Five philosophical Questions answered (1653) the subject is touched upon thus

"Good antiquity was so desirous to know the Truth that as often as natural and ordinary proofes failed them, they had recourse to supernatural, and extraordinary wayes. Such among the Jewes was the Water of Jealousie, of which an adulteresse could not drink without discovering her guiltinesse, it making her burst. Such was the Triall of the Sieve, in which the Vesta!! Nun, not guilty of unchastity, as she was accused to be, did carry water of Tiber without spilling any. Such were the oathes upon St Anthonies arme, of so great reverence that it was believed that whosoever was there perjured would within a year after bee burned with the Fire of that Saint: and even in our Times it is commonly reckoned that none lives above a yeare after they have incurred the Excommunication of Saint Geneviefe. And because nothing so hidden from Justice as murder, they use not only Torments of the Body, but also the Torture of the Soule, to which its passions doe deliver it over, of which Feare discovering itselfe more than the rest, the Judges have forgotten nothing that may make the suspected person fearefull: for besides their interrogatories, confronting him with witnesses, sterne lookes, and bringing before him the Instruments of Torture, as if they were ready to make him feele themthey persuade him that a Carkasse bleeds in the presence of his murtherers because dead Bodies being removed doe often bleed, and then he whose Conscience is tainted with the Synteresis of the Fact, is troubled in such sort that by his mouth or gesture he often bewrayes his owne guiltinesse, having his first motions in his owne power."

as not

In the course of a special narrative of an incident of this scrt, the