"That a King-Fisher, hanged by the Bill, sheweth us what Quarter the wind is, by an occult and secret propriety converting the Breast to that point of the Horizon from whence the Wind doth blow, is a received opinion and very strange-introducing natural Weathercocks, and extending magnetical positions as far as animal Natures: a Conceit supported chiefly by present practice, yet not made out by reason or experience.”

WEATHER OMENS:

THE SKY, PLANETS, ETC.

Among omens the learned author of the Papatus enumerates the hornedness of the moon, the shooting of the stars, and the cloudy rising of the sun; and in Shakespeare we read—

"Meteors fright the fixed stars of Heaven;
The palefaced Moon looks bloody on the Earth,
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings."

There are those, writes Defoe in his Memoirs of Duncan Campbel, "who from the clouds calculate the incidents that are to befall them, and see men on horseback, mountains, ships, forests, and a thousand other fine things in the air;" and the Popish Kingdome of Naogeorgus thus reproves the folly of his time (1570) :—

"Beside they give attentive Eare to blind Astronomars,

About th' aspects in every hour of sundrie shining Stars:
And underneath what planet every man is borne and bred,
What good or evill fortune doth hang over every hed.
Hereby they thinke assuredly to know what shall befall.
As men that have no perfite fayth nor trust in God at all:
But thinke that everything is wrought and wholy guided here,
By mooving of the Planets, and the whirling of the Speare."

In the Earl of Northampton's Defensative against the Poyson of Supposed Prophecies (1583) we have the author's express personal testimony to the mental intrepidity of Queen Elizabeth. "When dyvers, uppon greater scrupulosity than cause, went about to disswade her Majestye, lying then at Richmonde, from looking on the COMET which appeared last; with a courage aunswerable to the greatnesse of her State, shee caused the windowe to be sette open, and cast out thys worde: Facta est alea (the dyce are throwne), affirming that her stedfast hope and confidence was too firmly planted in the providence of God to be blasted or affrighted with those beames, which either had a ground in Nature whereuppon to rise, or at least no warrant out of 'Scripture to portend the mishappes of princes."

Prognostications of weather from ACHES and CORNS are free from the taint of superstition. "Achs and corns," says Lord Bacon, “ do engrieve either towards rain or frost. The one makes the humours to abound more, and the other makes them sharper." Butler also adverts to the subject

"As old Sinners have all points

O' th' Compass in their Bones and Joints;

Can by their pangs and aches find
All turns and changes of the Wind;
And, better than by Napier's Bones,
Feel in their own the Age of Moons."

Gay's first Pastoral contains some curious rural weather-omens

"We learnt to read the skies,

To know when hail will fall or winds arise.

He taught us erst the heifer's tail* to view

When stuck aloft, that show'rs would straight ensue ;
When swallows fleet soar high and sport in air,

He told us that the welkin would be clear."

In the Trivia of the same poet the inhabitants of towns are provided with similar portents—

"But when the swinging SIGNS your Ears offend
With creaking noise, then rainy Floods impend;
Soon shall the Kennels swell with rapid streams-

On Hosier's Poles depending Stockings ty'd,
Flag with the slacken'd gale, from side to side:
CHURCH MONUMENTS foretell the changing air;+
Then Niobe dissolves into a tear,

And sweats with secret grief: you'll hear the sounds
Of whistling Winds, ere kennels break their bounds;
Ungrateful Odours COMMON-SHORES diffuse,
And dropping Vaults distil unwholsome dews,

Ere the Tiles rattle with the smoking show'r." &c.

Among the signs of rain recorded in The Husbandman's Practice (1664) we find

"DUCKS and DRAKES shaking and fluttering their wings when they rise; young HORSES rubbing their backs against the ground; SHEEP bleating, playing, or skipping wantonly; SWINE being seen to carry bottles of Hay or Straw to any place and hide them; OXEN licking themselves against the hair; the sparkling of a LAMP or CANDLE; the falling of Soor down a Chimney more than ordinary; FROGS croaking; and SWALLOWS flying low."

And in The Cabinet of Nature (1637) the question as to "why a storm is said to follow presently when a company of hogges runne crying home" is answered thus

"Some say that a Hog is most dull and of a melancholy nature, and so by reason doth foresee the Raine that commeth; and in the time of Raine, indeed, I have observed that most Cattell doe pricke up their Eares: as for example an Asse will, when he perceiveth a Storme of Raine or Hail doth follow.'

According to Coles, when the down flies off colt's-foot, dandelion, and thistles in the absence of wind, it is an indication of rain.

So in Nabbes' comedy of Tottenham Court (1638), "I am sure I have foretold weather from the turning up of my cowe's tayle."

"So looks he like a marble toward rayne." Hall's Virgidemiarum (1598).

On the subject of superstitions connected with thunder, our testimonies are equally numerous. In the Prognostication Everlasting of Leonard Digges (1556), it is recorded that thunder in the morning signifies wind; about noon, rain; and in the evening a great tempest. Some write (but their ground I see not, proceeds our author) that Sunday's thunder should bring the death of learned men, judges and others; Monday's, the death of women; Tuesday's, plenty of grain ; Wednesday's, the death of harlots, and other bloodshed; Thursday's, plenty of sheep and corn; Friday's, the slaughter of a great man and other horrible murders; Saturday's, a general pestilent plague and great death. Under the head of "Extraordinarie tokens for the know. ledge of weather ” he adds—,

"Some have observed evil weather to folow when watry Foules leave the Sea, desiring Lande: the Foules of the Lande flying hyghe: The crying of Fowles about Waters making a great Noyse with their wynges: also the Sees swellyng with uncustomed Waves: if Beastes eate gredely : if they lycke their hooves: if they sodaynlye move here and there, makyng a noyse, brethyng up to the ayre with open Nostrels: rayne foloweth. Also the busy heving of Moules; the appering, or coming out of Wormes; Hennes resorting to the perche or reste, covered with dust; declare Rayne. The ample working of the spinnar in the Ayre; the Ant busied with her Egges: the Bees in fayre weather not farre wandryng: the continuall pratyng of the Crowe, chiefly twyse or thryse quycke calling, shew Tempest. Whan the Crowe or Raven gapeth against the Sunne, in Summer, heate foloweth. If they busy themselfes in proyning or washyng, and that in Wynter, loke for Raine. The uncustomed noise of Pultry, the noise of Swine, of Pecokes, declare the same. The Swalowe flying and beating the water, the chirping of the Sparow in the Morning, signifie Rayne. Raine sodainly dried up; woody Coveringes strayter than of custome; Belles harde further than commonly; the wallowyng of Dogges; the alteration of the Cocke crowing; all declare rainy weather. I leave these, wanting the good grounde of the rest. If the learned be desyrefull of the to forsayd, let them reade grave Virgil, primo Georgicorum, At Bor. &c."

When it thunders, writes Lloyd in his Stratagems of Jerusalem, the Thracians take their bows and arrows, and shoot upwards, imagining thereby to drive the thunder away. Cabrias, the Athenian general, being prepared to engage the enemy at sea, it suddenly lightened, whereupon the soldiers became so terrified that they declined to fight, until they were assured by Cabrias that now was the time to fight when Jupiter himself shewed by his lightning that he was ready to go before them. Similarly Epaminondas, on occasion of his soldiers being amazed by lightning, restored their confidence by exclaiming Lumen hoc Numina ostendunt; that is, thus do the gods shew us we shall have victory. So too we read that while the consul Paulus Emilius, who was the general of the Romans in Macedonia, was sacrificing to the gods at Amphipolis, it lightened; which he accepted as a certain presage of the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom. Lloyd further observes that the dictator, consul, prætor, and other magistrates of ancient Rome were removable from office, if the soothsaver saw any occasion from lightning, thunder, shooting of stars, and the eclipse of the sun and moon.

In hot countries, according to Willsford's revelation of Nature's Secrets, thunder and lightning in winter are usual and have the same effects; but in northern climates they are held to be ominous as portending factions, tumults, and sanguinary wars; and, what is rare according to the old adage, "Winter's thunder is the Summer's wonder." As an example of the inconsistency of superstitious observations, Massey (in his notes on the Fasti of Ovid) calls attention to the fact that, whereas the Romans accounted thunder on the left hand as a favourable omen, the Greeks and barbarians thought otherwise. "It chaunceth sometimes," writes Lord Northampton in his Defensative, "to thunder about that time and season of the yeare when swannes hatch their young; and yet no doubt it is a paradox of simple men to thinke that a swanne cannot hatch without a cracke of thunder." Of the swans which periodically visit the lakes in Caithnesshire we learn from the Statistical Account (1794) that they are "remarkable prognosticators of the weather, and much relied on as such by the farmer."

From the simile in Bodenham's Belvedere (1600)—

"As hedgehogs doe foresee ensuing stormes,

So wise men are for Fortune still prepared,"—

it should seem that our ancestors somehow held the hedgehog to be among weather prognosticators.

VEGETABLES.

Willsford has an ample disclosure of Nature's Secrets under this head. TREFOIL or clavergrass, he writes, against stormy and tempestuous weather will seem rough, its leaves starting and rising up as if it were apprehensive of an assault. TEZILS or Fuller's thistle, gathered and hung up in an airy place in a house, will, upon the advent of cold and windy weather, grow smoother, and against rain will close up its prickles. HELIOTROPES and MARIGOLDS not only presage stormy weather by closing and contracting their leaves, but turn towards the sun's rays all the day, shutting up shop in the evening. PINE-APPLES, suspended within doors where they may freely enjoy the air, will close themselves against wet and cold weather, and open against dry and hot seasons. The leaves of trees and plants in general will shake and tremble overmuch against a tempest. All tender buds, blossoms and delicate flowers contract and withdraw themselves within their husks and leaves by way of security against the incursion of a storm; while leaves coursing aloft in the wind, or down floating upon the water, are significant of tempests. A GALL or OAK-APPLE, upon being cut in pieces in the autumn (Mizaldus testifies to the notion), will be found to contain one of these three things-a fly, denoting want; a worm, plenty; or a spider, mortality. Lupton's version of this last "countryman's astrology" has it that if the little worm you find in an oak-apple plucked from the tree flies away, it signifies war; if it creeps, it betokens scarcity of corn; if it runs about, it foreshews the plague. The same writer, founding upon the authority

of Cardan, represents that the premature dropping of the leaves of the elm or the peach foreshews a murrain. In the Athenian Oracle the fly in the oak-apple is explained as denoting war; the spider, pestilence; and the small worm, plenty. A profusion of blossoms on the BROOM or the WALNUT tree is a sign of a fruitful year of corn; as also is great store of nuts and almonds, especially of filberts. Finally, when ROSES and VIOLETS flourish in the autumn, it is a premonition of a plague, or some pestiferous disease, in the ensuing year.

STUMBLING.

From the comedy of Love for Love, in which Congreve in the character of old Foresight so wittily and forcibly satirises superstition, we gather that to stumble in going down-stairs is held to be a bad omen. In this connection we are reminded of the saying that a rusty nail or a crooked pin shoots up into prodigies. It is lucky, observes Grose, to tumble up-stairs; a jocular observation probably meaning it was lucky the individual did not tumble down-stairs. Cicero refers to "pedis offensio" in the second book on Divination; Molinæus emphasises the same remark: "Si quis in limine impegit, ominosum est ;" and in the old Oxford Archdeacon's Marriage of the Arts, “that you may never stumble at your going out in the morning" is found among the omens deprecated. Melton's Astrologaster is express on the subject: "If a man stumbles in a morning as soon as he comes out of doors it is a signe of ill lucke; even as the stumbling of a horse on the highway." So also Bishop Hall's estimate of the superstitious man includes: "If he stumbles at the threshold, he feares a mischief;" and in Gaule's copious catalogue of Vain Observations, "The stumbling at first going about an enterprise" finds a place.

In his Almanac for 1695 Poor Robin ridicules the superstitious charms thought potent to avert ill luck in stumbling : “All those who walking the streets, stumble at a stick or stone, and, when they are past it, turn back again to spurn or kick the stone they stumbled at are liable to turn students in Goatam College; and, upon admittance. to have a coat put upon him, with a cap, a bauble, and other one ments belonging to his degree."

That stumbling at a grave was anciently reckoned ominous, ** learn from Shakespeare—

"How oft to-night

Have my old feet stumbled at graves!"

And in Braithwaite's Whimzies (1631) the superstition is adverted Of a jealous neighbour he writes: "His earth-reverting body (accor ing to his mind) is to be buried in some cell, roach, or vault, and in open place, lest passengers (belike) might stumble on his grave.”

KNIVES, SCISSORS, RAZORS, &c.

It is unlucky, says Grose, to lay one's knife and fork crosswis crosses and misfortunes being likely to follow therefrom

It af