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Now among these Weather Proverbs we shall find, if we take up 

 any book treating of them, that no small number are connected 

 ■with particular Saints' Days or other festivals, which are thought 

 somehow or other to have an influence in determining the weather, 

 and, in certain instances, for a long time to come. It is to these 

 sayings exclusively that I would on the present occasion draw 

 attention. Of course we break in here upon some of the strong 

 holds of superstition — holds pertinaciously kept and defended 

 even in the present age by many ill-educated persons, and from 

 which circumstance it might be thought scarcely worth while to 

 give the sayings any serious consideration. Some of them, however, 

 though much mixed up with superstition, are not altogether unde- 

 serving of notice, as belonging to the class of sayings above alluded 

 to in which there is both truth and error ; and this being so, it rests 

 strictly with science to separate the two, and to bring out what 

 real truth there is in them distinctly to view. 



Some, perhaps, may be inclined to ask how such superstition 

 could have originated. Fully to reply to this question we must go 

 back to the days in which men looked up to supernatural powers 

 for the ordering of all events and occurrences, being the while in 

 utter ignorance of the real laws by which nature works, and of that 

 interdependence of natural phenomena, in the right interpretation 

 of which science consists. They noticed the phenomena them- 

 selves, but they were unable to refer them to their true causes. 

 Tribes, whose habits of life led them to be much abroad, were 

 perhaps as assiduous observers as ourselves. They watched the 

 heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars ; they marked the 

 regularity of their movements ; they marked, in connection with 

 these movements, the succession of the seasons; the influence 

 which the seasons had on the atmosphere and the soil, bringing 

 heat and cold, drought and moisture, at their respective times. 

 And they knew from experience what kind of weather best favoured 

 the successful cultivation of the ground. They knew that the seed 

 would not germinate without moisture, nor the crop ripen without 

 heat. Yet they understood not by what agencies the different 

 states of weather were brought about. And how much more must 

 they have been struck with those occasional phenomena, which 



