282 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



By many signs wild creatures inform the game- 

 keeper of the approach of hard weather. The wood- 

 pigeons give him useful warning. In most 



Hard- parts of the country flocks of pigeons take 

 Weather f 



Prophets *" * ^ e greens and root-crops a thou- 

 sand pigeons may be seen rising from a 

 single field of roots. In mild weather they may 

 return once or twice during a day. When they are 

 seen constantly streaming to the root -fields, those 

 disturbed returning again and again, it is a certain 

 sign that hard weather is near. 



Animals have a reputation as weather prophets if 

 their prophecies strike the human observer as some- 

 what obvious. The cat washes her face, 

 Weather- and this is commonly held to be a sign of 



wise coming rain ; in summer it is thought to be 



Beasts ^, , 



and a S1 g n f a thunder-storm when cats are 



Birds remarkably lively. Dogs sometimes bury 

 their bones when rain is in the air perhaps 

 an inherited instinct to save food against days of 

 bad hunting. Horses by stretching their necks and 

 sniffing the air seem to be scenting distant rain ; 

 and donkeys have a way of braying before the storm. 

 Shepherds hold that if sheep turn their tails wind- 

 ward rain will come ; and cowherds read the same 

 prophecy when a herd of cows gathers at one end 

 of a pasture, their tails to the wind. Changes in 



