70 On Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies. 
return to this part of the question another day. I will conclude now 
with the clever lines of Dr. Jenner, which sum up the matter very 
accurately :— 
“‘ The hollow winds begin to. blow, 
The clouds look black, the glass is low: : 
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 
And spiders from their cobwebs creep ; 
Last night the sun went pale to bed, 
The moon in halos hid her head: 
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 
For see a rainbow spans the sky ; 
The walls are damp, the ditches smell, 
Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel; 
The squalid toads at dusk are seen, 
Slowly crawling o’er the green; 
Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, 
The distant hills are looking nigh ; 
Hark, how the chairs and tables crack, 
Old Betty’s joints are on the rack: 
And see yon rooks, how odd their flight, 
They imitate the gliding kite, 
Or seem precipitate to fall 
As if they felt the piercing ball ; 
How restless are the snorting swine, 
The busy flies disturb the kine ; 
Low o’er the grass the swallow wings, 
The cricket too, how sharp she sings, 
Puss on the hearth with velvet paws, 
Sits wiping o’er her whiskered jaws ; 
The wind, unsteady, veers around, 
Or settling in the south is found: 
The whirling wind the dust obeys, 
And o’er the rapid eddy plays; 
The leech disturbed is newly risen 
Quite to the summit of his prison ;— 
"Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow, 
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.” 
‘ 
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