CHAP. 4. OF PROGNOSTICKS. 129 



of weather may be divided into those which 

 result from the observance of the sky, and of 

 meteorological instruments ; and those which 

 are deducible from the habits and motions of 

 particular animals and plants. 



The popular prognosticks of Rain, Wind, 

 and other changes of the weather, which with 

 little variety are common in most countries, 

 seem to have been known and observed with 

 accuracy of old. Indeed their being familiar 

 to almost every age and country affords the 

 strongest confirmation of their correctness, to 

 those who have not had constant experience 

 of them. 



Although we find familiar mention of the 

 Signs of the Weather in the works of Homer, 

 Hesiod, and among almost all the oriental 

 writings, yet Theophrastus the Grecian natu- 

 ralist, seems to have been the first who culti- 

 vated this branch of meteorological science, 

 and collected together the proverbial rules of 

 judging of the weather; 'which were shortly 

 afterwards put into verse by Aratus the poet, 

 in his Atoo-ripeiK, above two thousand one 

 hundred years ago, and are imitated by Virgil, 

 Lucan, Pliny, Seneca, and others. With little 

 variation, the same rules are to be found 



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