Strange Natural History Superstitions 



cavil others, the palpable absurdity of which renders 

 them equally unworthy of credence. 



A crowing hen and a whistling woman are still con- 

 sidered in some parts of the country the unluckiest 

 things a man can have about his house. In the good 

 old times the former was promptly slain and the latter 

 reproved. The path still remains smooth in regard to 

 the first-named offender, but sex equality has strewn it 

 with thorns for the sufferer so far as the second is 

 concerned. 



Within quite recent times I have met country people 

 who solemnly believed that the authorities at the British 

 Natural History Museum in London had offered 100 

 for a perfect nest of the kingfisher. When I have in- 

 formed them that the article and the offer for it are both 

 myths, as the bird does not make a nest any more than 

 a museum makes jokes, they have gone away consider- 

 ing me either very ignorant or very prone to a kind of 

 humour known as " leg pulling." 



So far as crowing is concerned some old roosters have 

 a weakness for the night hours. Whether it is done to 

 cheer up a harem disturbed by rats, or to take a rise 

 out of some young neighbour by fooling him into think- 

 ing day is about to break, I do not know, but the 

 indulgence has crystallized into a disagreeable habit in 

 my neighbourhood, and has forcibly reminded me of an 

 old friend who had a great dread of cocks that crew by 

 night. If his own rooster ever forgot himself by doing 

 so and thereby awakened his owner a visit was straight- 

 way made to the fowlhouse to study the omens. If the 



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