280 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



" Besides, it is true 



To our wisdom is due 

 The knowledge of Sciences all : 

 And chiefly those rare 



Metaphysics of air 

 Men 'Meteorology' call. 



And men, in their words, 



Acknowledge the Birds' 

 Erudition in weather and star ; 

 For they say "Twill be dry, 



The swallow is high,' 

 Or 'Rain, for the chough is afar.'" 



Ruskin says that he was not aware of this last 

 weather-sign; nor, he supposes, was the Duke of 

 Hamilton's keeper, who shot the last pair of choughs 

 on Arran in 1863. He trusts that the climate has 

 wept for them, and is certain that the Con is ton 

 clouds grow heavier in his last years. All the birds 

 of the swallow kind fly high at the advent of or 

 during fine weather, and low before a storm. These 

 facts are accounted for by another. When the 

 weather is calm the ephemerae upon which swallows 

 feed fly high in air, but just over the earth or water 

 if it be rough. The cry of the chaffinch has already 

 been mentioned; in Scotland the children say, 

 " Weet-weet " (the cry), " Dreep-dreep " (the con- 

 sequence). 



In Hampshire swans are believed to be hatched 

 in thunderstorms; and it is said that those on the 

 Thames have an instinctive prescience of floods. 



