REVIEWS. 
79 
and Birket Foster, need no word of commendation from us, of the coloured 
plates illustrating the last portion of the work we must speak in high, terms. 
These plates consist of examples of the leaves of common British trees, and 
have been carefully copied from photographs which reduced the specimens to 
half their natural size. Nearly all these illustrations are exceedingly good, 
and the author assures us that exceptional attention was paid to the faithful 
delineation of the venation ; the representations of the conifers in particular 
are deserving of high praise. 
FOLK LORE.* 
T HERE are few things more curious than the superstitious notions enter- 
tained in various places with regard to natural objects and phenomena? 
and Mr. Thiselton Dyer, taking due advantage of the interest attaching to the 
subject, has made a very amusing book out of “ English Folk Lore.” It 
would require a considerably larger volume, however, to do full justice to 
such a subject, and we find a good many things omitted which ought to 
have figured in it. Thus to take only two Shakespearian examples, Mr. 
Dyer quotes the reference in Hamlet to the disappearance of ghosts at the 
crowing of the cock, but omits the much more interesting statement that 
almost immediately follows : — 
“ Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes, 
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, 
This bird of dawning singeth all night long : 
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad : 
The nights are wholesome : then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm ; ” 
and again quoting, not directly, the reference to the “ toad, ugly and venomous, 
no mention is made of the “precious jewel in her head,” which, we cannot 
help thinking, many of Mr. Dyer’s readers might like to know something 
about. There are several other references to the toad in Shakespeare which 
would be deserving of Mr. Dyer’s notice when his book comes to a second 
edition, which we sincerely hope it may soon do. As he has no reference at 
all to cattle in his present volume, we can furnish him with the following 
curious superstition which we heard of a good many years ago from an old 
Essex woman. The cattle in the stalls, according to this authority, always 
bow their heads towards the east soon after midnight on Christmas morning ; 
and she remembered having been taken, when a child, to witness the cere- 
mony, but, on the morning of old Christmas Day, the cattle had resolutely 
refused to accept the new style. About half Mr. Dyer’s book is devoted 
to the superstitions connected with natural objects, the moon, plants, and 
animals ; the remainder treats of charms, births, deaths, and marriages, the 
days of the week, the months, and weather, &c. 
* “English Folk Lore.” By the Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, M.A. 8vo. 
London: Hardwicke & Bogue, 1878. 
