J32 OF PROGNOSTICKS. CHAP. 4. 1 



perceiving one, they anticipate and prepare 

 against the occurrence of another. Their 

 prognostication, however, of weather seems in 

 fact to result rather from some impressions on 

 their feelings, than from any accurate observation 

 of what is going on in the sky.* Peculiarities 

 in the electric state of the atmosphere may, I 

 think, be supposed to affect the constitutions 

 of animals in the same manner as they appear 

 to do ours, and may thereby excite either plea- 

 surable or uneasy sensations.f 



Rain may be expected, when the Swallow 

 flies low, and skims backward and forward over 



* It is a pity that among all our works of comparative 

 anatomy, we have actually no accounts of the structure and 

 Organs of the Brain of different animals. The discoveries of 

 Gall and Spurzheim seem likely to throw some light on this 

 most interesting part of Natural History. 



t " Haud equidem credo quia sit divinitus illis 

 Ingenium, aut rerum fato prudentia major : 

 Verum ubi tempestas et coeli mobilis humor 

 Mutavere vias, et Jupiter uvidus austris 

 Denset erant quae rara modo, et quae densa relaxat, 

 Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus 

 Nunc alios, alios dum nubila ventus agebat, 

 Concipiunt ; hinc ille avium concentus in agris 

 J5t laetae pecudes et ovantes gutture corvi." 



Virgil, Gcorg. lib. i. 



