70 On Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies. 



return to this part of the question another day. I will conclude now 

 with the clever lines of Dr. J enner, which sum up the matter very 

 accurately : — 



" 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 ; — 

 'Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow, 

 Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow." 



