Queries and Answers. 93 



of the bottle ; and, reversing the bottle, give it, by dipping, 

 three or four coats of melted caoutchouc, till thick enough to 

 prevent evaporation. When cool, apply the black varnish, if 

 neatness of appearance be desired. — J. D. 



A Bird whose nightly Note foretells approaching Weather. — 

 Sir, During many midnight rambles in Suffolk, I have been 

 often startled at the peculiar cry of some bird in the air, re- 

 sembling the stifled scream of a person in distress. So great 

 a resemblance does it bear to the latter sound, that, when I 

 first heard it (which was on the border of a lonely wood, 

 some two miles from any human habitation), I freely confess 

 the action of my heart was materially accelerated, and (to use 

 a very hackneyed expression) my hair stood on end, " like 

 quills upon the fretful porcupine," and I fully expected to 

 hear it followed up by a cry of murder. No such awful 

 sound, however, vibrated on my tympanum; and well pleased 

 was I to find, on a nearer approach, that it did not proceed 

 from a terrestrial but from an aerial visitant. But the most 

 singular circumstance is, that whenever I heard the shrill note 

 of this unknown bird, rain, hail, or snow invariably followed. 

 In no one instance, and I have heard the solitary cry of this 

 nightly wanderer some hundreds of times, did a contrary 

 result happen. And with such a degree of confidence could 

 I rely on the meteorological information of this "knight errant" 

 of the air, that I was enabled to-determine the state of the en- 

 suing morrow, and could foretell a fall of rain, hail, or snow 

 with some degree of certainty. Even when the barometers 

 and hygrometers in the neighbourhood were, to use a nautical 

 phrase, " taken aback," I could, by listening for the cry of 

 my unknown monitor, determine whether a continuance of 

 fine or foul weather was to be expected, and have been en- 

 abled to excel all the weather-wise old men as a prognosticator 

 of the weather. I generally heard his note when the whole 

 surface of the heavens was covered with a dense mass of 

 cirro-stratus clouds ; but at other times he would " pipe 

 cheerily," when the moon shone forth in unclouded serenity; 

 when — 



" Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat luna sereno 

 Inter minora sidera." — Hor. 

 [" 'Twas night, and in the unruffled vault of heaven, 

 The moon shone forth amidst the smaller stars."] 



Yet, whether dark or clear, warm or cold, rain, hail, or snow 

 invariably followed, and that within two or three days, but 

 generally on the day ensuing. I was never fortunate enough 

 to get a glimpse of him ; and, if I had, I am not ornithologist 

 enough to have determined to what genus or species he 



