On the Popular Weather Prognostics of Scotland. 231 
(29.) When milk becomes suddenly and inexplicably sour, a 
thunder storm is at hand. 
(30.) When spiders’ webs are seen floating about in the air, 
farmers regard it as a sign of coming rain. 
(31.) Heavy dews in hot weather indicate a continuation of 
fair weather, and no dew after a hot day foretells rain. 
(82.) Addressed by Dr Jenner, in 1810, to a Lady who asked him if he thought it 
would rain to-morrow. 
“ The hollow winds begin to blow, 
The clouds look black, the glass is low: 
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 
And spiders from their cobwebs creep : 
Last night the sun went pale to bed, 
The moon in halos hid her head : 
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 
For see a rainbow spans the sky ; 
The walls are damp, the ditches smell, 
Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel ; 
The squalid toads at dusk are seen 
Slowly crawling o’er the green ; 
Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, 
The distant hills are looking nigh ; 
Hark, how the chairs and tables crack, 
Old Betty’s joints are on the rack ; 
And see yon rooks how odd their flight, 
They imitate the gliding kite, 
Or seem precipitate to fall 
As if they felt the piercing ball ; 
How restless are the snorting swine, 
The busy flies disturb the kine ; 
Low o’er the grass the swallow wings, 
The cricket too, how sharp she sings, 
Puss on the hearth with velvet paws 
Sits wiping o’er her whiskered Jaws ; 
The wind, unsteady, veers around, 
Or settling in the south is found ; 
The whirling wind the dust obeys 
And o’er the rapid eddy plays ; 
The leech disturbed is newly risen 
Quite to the summit of his prison ;— 
*T will surely rain, I see, with sorrow, 
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.” 
AppENDIx (A). 
The Shepherd of Banbury’s Rules to Judge of the Change of the 
Weather.—Extracts from the Second Edition, printed in London 
md 748. 
In the preface it is said, ‘‘ Most of our Shepherd’s observations give us a 
day’s notice, many a week’s, and some extend to several months’ prognos- 
tication of the changes of weather ; and of how great use these may be to 
all ranks and degrees of people,—to the sedentary valetudinarian as well 
