CHAP. 10. SUPERSTITIONS. 265 



said first to gleam on the gloom of the Pagan 

 world.* 



There is this remarkable circumstance about 

 the crowing of Cocks. At several different 

 times in the course of the night, a general 

 crowing may be heard, from all quarters where 

 there are Cocks, the first that begins apparently 

 setting all the rest off; and this fact is remark- 

 ably striking in places where numbers of Cocks 

 are bred for the purpose of fighting. As far as 

 I can observe, excepting at the dawn of day, 

 these crowing matches happen at very irregular 

 and uncertain periods. The ancients, however, 

 seem to have regarded them as taking place at 

 marked intervals of time which appear to have 

 caused their division of the night watches by 

 the first, second, and third, AXe*ropwaf, as 

 mentioned by St. John.f 



They say that if a dead Kingfisher be hanged 



* The Vanes were said to have been originally cut out in 

 the form of a Cock, and placed on the tops of churches during 

 the holy ages, as an emblem of clerical vigilance ; hence the 

 name of Weathercock, in German Wetterhahn. 



Vide Beckmans Erfindungcn, vol. i. 



r Some observations on this subject may be found in vol. i. 

 of Dr. Hales's Analyses of Ancient Chronology, 4to. London, 

 1810. 



