102 
RURAL HOURS. 
spiders ! It would be difficult to say why they cherished this 
fancy ; but according to that old worthy, Hakluyt, when Martin 
Frobisher and his party landed on Cumberland Island, in quest of 
gold, their expectations were much increased by finding there 
numbers of spiders, “ which, as many affirm, are signes of great 
store of gold.” 
They fancied that spiings also were abundant near minerals, so 
that we may, in this county, cherish great hopes of a mine — if 
we choose. 
Monday, ^th . — Very warm yesterday and to-day. Thermometer 
83 in the shade at noon. Walked in the evening. The com-fields 
are now well garnished with scare-crows, and it is amusing to see 
the different devices employed for the purpose. Bits of tin hung 
upon upright sticks are very general ; lines of Avhite twine, crossing 
the field at intervals near the soil, are also much in favor, and the 
crows are said to be particularly shy of this sort of network ; 
other fields are guarded by a number of little whirligig wind- 
mills. One large field that we passed ertdently belonged to a 
man of great resources in the Avay of expedients ; for, among a 
number of contrivances, no two Avere alike : in one spot, large as 
life, stood the usual man of straAv, here was a tin pan on a pole, 
there a sheet Avas flapping its full breadth in the hreeze, here was 
a straw hat on a stick, there an old flail, in one corner a broken 
tin Dutch oven glittered in the sunshine, and at right angles Avith 
it was a tambourine ! It toust needs be a bold croAv that Avill 
venture to attack such a camp.* It is strange how soon these crea- 
♦ This field yielded ninety-three bushels of maize to the acre the following 
autumn. 
