222 



the pains he had taken to fulfil the objects of the Club, closed the 

 Session. 



The Winter Session of 1870-71 commenced on December 7th, 

 and was held as usual in the Literary and Scientific Institution. 

 The Rev. Prebendary Scarth having taken the chair, 



The President (the Eev. L. Jenyns), read a paper on " ;S'^. 

 Stvithin and other Weather Saints" (vide pa(/e 116, supra J. 



At the conclusion of the paper, the reading of which occupied 

 about an hour and a quarter, 



The Chaieman, after thanking Mr. Jenyns on behalf of the 

 meeting for his address, said he had somewhere seen this saying 

 in reference to the weather, " Quarta, quinta qvalis, tota lima talis," 

 which might be translated to the effect that the weather of the 

 month would take its character from that of the 4th and 5th days. 

 There was, he said, sometlnng in the mind of man which connected 

 the changes of weather with certain occurrences or the names of 

 certain persons. Among the rustic population he thought there 

 would always be found a strong tendency to connect certain states 

 of the weather with certain peculiar names, and this had been so 

 from the earliest times. 



The Rev. J. Earle said that the quotation the Chairman had 

 brought forward appeared to be of great interest, but it did not 

 seem to bear any scientific value, except so far as they had been 

 taught by Mr. Jenyns that there were successive characters in the 

 month, so that he supposed the weather at the opening of the 

 month, on the 4th and 5th, would pronounce the character of the 

 weather during the remainder. He remembered an early chronicle 

 in which some phenomenon that caused alarm was mentioned, where 

 it was particularly stated that it was on quarta tuna, and he thought 

 this might quite possibly have some reference to what had been 

 quoted by Mr. Scarth. Still he was inclined to think that in many 

 other things mere literary sound had influenced the form in 

 which the saying had cast itself There was a certain alliteration 

 in the words quarta, quinta quails, tota luna talis. But speaking 

 now in reference to the paper, it was particularly interesting to 

 him, though he was no man of science, to see a scientific man 

 entering a field which had been actually contemned by men of 



