70 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



habits. These habits of birds, insects, and other ani 

 mals, however, may often avail us as weather signs, 

 before any atmospheric changes have become percepti 

 ble to us. But these creatures are not to be regarded 

 as prophets. Man only prophesies by observing the 

 connection between their actions and the weather that 

 follows. The tree-frog that from the old oak utters his 

 signal cries, enables us to prognosticate a shower, of 

 which he knows nothing. He feels the agreeable influ 

 ence of a damper atmosphere that precedes a shower, 

 and his voice is heard at noonday uttering those sounds 

 which are commonly heard only at dew-fall. The swal 

 low flies low and often dips into the stream, because 

 she finds near the surface of the water a greater abun 

 dance of insects which are prevented from rising, by the 

 dampness of the air. 



During the prevalence of these phenomena, the 

 heavenly bodies often exhibit peculiar aspects and add 

 new assurances to our predictions. As nature, after a 

 genial shower in summer, raises her bow in the clouds, 

 to be at the same time a proof of the subsidence of the 

 tempest and a signal for a general hymn of gladness to 

 'the unseen Deity; in like manner before a shower, 

 she encircles the moon with a luminous halo, to give 

 kindly warning of the coming event. The constella 

 tions are often arrayed in unusual brightness, and then 

 suddenly begin to wane. Hesperus, after leading forth 

 the bright hosts of evening, sinks down behind a pavil 

 ion of mist, and the chaste Diana displays her crescent 

 dripping with dews, as if she had just risen out of the 

 aerial damps of the earth. It was not all in vain that 

 the ancients believed the moon to be placed in heaven, 

 not only to illuminate the night, but also to unfold to 

 the inhabitants of earth the presages of the future ; 



