Methods of Wind making. 45 
Kinahan, illustrating the sincerity of the belief in the power of 
whistling in raising wind, says: ‘Ina dead calm you may whis- 
tle for wind, except in a dangerous place. Crossing from Skib- 
bereen to Clear island, county Cork, a friend of mine was very 
nearly getting into a row for inadvertently whistling.” This 
belief is very general. In California sailors say that one may 
whistle softly for a breeze, but that it is dangerous to indulge in 
loud or thoughtless whistling, as it may bring a gale. Here the 
skipper scratches the mizzen-mast for a fair wind. 
Sailors profess great confidence in the ability of the cat to raise 
the wind, and are accustomed to say that the cat carries the 
wind in her tail. Cats have the general reputation of being 
very weather-wise. On shipboard especially, it is considered 
imprudent to provoke a cat, because she is assumed to have a 
certain share in the arrangement of the weather. Imprudence 
of this sort appears, however, to have no terrors for the Soudan- 
ese In western Java, for, when rain is needed, they form in 
procession with gongs and clappers, take their cats to the nearest 
streams, where the animals are sprinkled and bathed. 
Many sailors also have a very curious notion that hen’s eggs 
on board ship produce contrary winds, and on the occurrence 
of such winds they are likely to insist that the eggs must be 
thrown overboard. 
Another of these folk-lore remnants of sailors is the idea that 
there is a distinct relation between the albatross and wind. This 
superstition has been embalmed in most attractive form by 
Coleridge in his “ Lay of the Ancient Mariner.” One stanza 
runs as follows: 
For all averred I had killed the bird 
That made the breeze to blow. 
Oh, wretch! said they, the bird to slay 
That made the breeze to blow. 
e 
In addition to the above folk-lore remnants there are some 
methods which are purely magical. The earliest reference to this 
sort which I have found is the case of Sdpater. He is said to 
have caused a horrible famine in Asia Minor by “chaining the 
winds.” He was put to death by Constantine—probably for this 
reason, as this crime was forbidden by the laws of the Twelve 
Tables as well as later in the Theodosian code. 
* Forbes: Eastern Archipelago, p. 75. 
