THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



NOVEMBER, 1834. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Notices of certain Omens and Superstitions connected mtk 

 Natural Objects, By the Rev. W. T. Bree, M.A. 



Observing, in a former Number (V. 209.), an essay of 

 Mr. J, C. Farmer's, entitled, " Contributions towards an 

 account of omens and superstitions connected with natural 

 history," I venture to add a few similar instances, which have 

 come under my own observation, in the hope that they may 

 prove not unacceptable ; and the more so, as Mr. Farmer 

 invites others to follow his example. Many of these super- 

 stitious fancies are, 1 take it, of great antiquity; and, of some 

 of them, it is, perhaps, next to impossible to trace the origin. 

 But I am not going to write a treatise on the subject, but 

 merely to give a few examples in point. 



The Cat.* — Sailors, as I am informed on the authority of 

 a naval officer, have a great dislike to see the cat, on board 

 ship, unusually playful and frolicsome: such an event, they 

 consider, prognosticates a storm ; and they have a saying on 



* " The cat is the sine qua non of a witch," Warburton, on the pas- 

 sage in Macbeth, 



" Thrice the brindled cat hath mew*^d,"^ 



observes, that a cat, from time immemorial, has been the agent and 

 favourite of witches. This superstitious fancy is pagan, and very ancient ; 

 and the original, perhaps, this : — When Galinthia was changed into a cat 

 by the Fates (says Antonius Liberalis, Metam., c. xxix.), by witches 

 (says Pausanias, in his Bceotics), Hecate took pity of her, and made her 

 her priestess ; in which office she continues to this day.. Hecate herselfj 

 too, when Typhon forced all the gods and goddesses to hide themselves 

 in animals, assumed the shape of a cat. So Ovid, 

 " Fele soror Phoebi latuit." 

 [The sister of Phoebus lay hid under the form of a cat.] 



See Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities, by Ellis, ii. 394, 395.; 

 a work which may be usefully consulted, as containing a great fund of 

 curious information on the subject of omens and superstitions. 



- ' VII, _ No. 4^3. ' t^N 



