292 NATURAL HISTORY 



with thunder and lightning, and if those come not, there 

 will be wind and rain for many days. 



43. The globe of flame, which the ancients called Castor, 

 which is seen by mariners and seafaring men at sea, if there 

 be but one, presages a cruel tempest (Castor is the dead 

 brother), and much more if it stick not close to the mast, 

 but dances up and down ; but if they be twins (and Pollux 

 the living brother be present), and that when the tempest 

 is high, it is a good presage ; but if there be three (namely, 

 if Helen, the plague of all things, come in), it will be a 

 more cruel tempest : so that one seems to show the indi 

 gested matter of the storm; two, a digested and ripe matter; 

 three or more, an abundance that will hardly be dispersed. 



44. If we see the clouds drive very fast when it is a clear 

 sky, we must look for winds from that way from which the 

 clouds are driven ; but if they wheel and tumble up toge 

 ther, when the sun draws near to that part in which they 

 are tumbled up together, they will begin to scatter and 

 sever ; and if they part most towards the north, it betokens 

 wind ; if towards the south, rain. 



45. If at sunsetting there arise black and dark clouds, 

 they presage rain ; if against the sun, namely, in the east, 

 the same night; if near the sun in the west, the next day, 

 with winds. 



46. The clearing of a cloudy sky, if it begins against the 

 wind which then blows, signifies clear fair weather ; with 

 the wind it betokens nothing, but the thing remains un 

 certain. 



47. There are sometimes seen several as it were chambers, 

 or joined stories of clouds one above the other (so as Gil- 

 bertus affirms, he hath seen five of them together) and 

 always the blackest are lowermost, though sometimes it 

 appears otherwise, because the whitest do more allure the 

 sight. A double conjunction of stories, if it be thick, shows 

 approaching rain (especially if the lower cloud seem as it 

 were big with child) ; more conjunctions presage continu 

 ance of rain. 



48. If clouds spread abroad like fleeces of wool here and 

 there, they foreshow tempests ; but if they lie one a top of 

 another, like scales or tiles, they presage drought and clear 

 weather. 



49. Feathered clouds, like to the boughs of a palm tree, 

 or the flowers of a rainbow, are prognostics of present rain, 

 or immediately to follow. 



50. When hills and hillocks look as though they, wore 



