KEEN OBSERVATIONS 231 



rain was doing to the harvest : 'It's o' no use for 

 you to expect fine weather whilst these 'ere coiuicks 

 (comets) be about, and flying along the sky ' ; and 

 again he oracularly delivered himself : ' You may 

 always know when there would be rain whenever 

 you see them there rainbows a travelling along the 

 top of them hills.' This was in allusion to the range 

 of the Chilterns, which were about six miles distant, 

 and bounded the south of the vale of Aylesbury. 

 Another of the men had been ill, and had had the 

 doctor to attend on him, who told my son that he, 

 the doctor, had made a close examination of him, 

 and told him he was suffering from ' tar in his 

 stomick,' and that it had much alarmed him, as he 

 could not understand how the tar had got there, 

 and the doctor had told him he could not get well 

 till it was removed. My son, on inquiring of the 

 yEsculapius, found that he had said ' stomachic 

 catarrh.' Yet the observations of these men on 

 natural appearances are very keen, and from their 

 own long experience, and that of many, many years 

 observation of their ancestors, their curious infor- 

 mation could be almost implicitly depended on. 

 They tell you it is strange but true, that when the 

 cattle are lying about the pastures, quietly chewing 

 their cud, during heavy rain, it is certain to clear 

 up, with the probability of fine weather afterwards. 

 On a neighbouring farm, where one of the chief 

 grazing grounds was on the side of a steep hill, 

 the cattle invariably chose the highest part of 

 the ground during wet weather when fine was 



