[5]. Milman’s translation.
And Chaucer, while following the majority of the poets in aspersing the crow, still makes him serve as a barometer:
Ne nevir aftir swete noise shall ye make,
But evir crye ayenst tempest and rain....
All nature reads the coming signs. The migratory woodcock will desert the fall covers in advance of the storm, even though the weather promise fair. Just before a storm, like its echo in advance, I have heard the Canadian forest resounding on every side with the cry of the great horned owl—oh-hoo, oh-hoo! oh-hoo, oh-hoor-r-r-r! Wild fowl are conscious of the change from afar. Even the domestic goose and duck are unusually garrulous previous to a storm, voicing their pleasure at the prospect of approaching rain. I recall a case in point while trout-fishing, where geese proved excellent weather-prophets. The day in question, September 14, 1875, the last day of the open season in Ontario, like the three or four preceding days, was warm, hazy, and delightful, with no perceptible omens to denote an approaching storm, save the graceful mares’-tails waving from the sky. But a large flock of geese, which appeared to dispute with the trout the possession of the pond, and which had frequently proved a source of annoyance while angling, were more than usually excited, screaming continually, and flying to and from the pond with loud gaggling. The sun descended behind the tamaracks with an angry frown, the moon became obscured by ominous clouds, the temperature fell suddenly, and a severe equinoctial storm set in.
Birds, however, can not be implicitly relied upon as weather-prophets, especially as harbingers of spring. Year after year, tempted by instinct and the tempered air, do the migratory birds take early flights to the northward. Suddenly on some genial morning, the vanguards appear. A blue-bird’s, or song-sparrow’s dulcet warble falls upon the ear, and we welcome the return of spring. But season after season we have to record the disappearance of the birds again, and the recurrence of stormy weather. Lured by the soft spring sunshine, and eager to revisit their northern homes, the birds, like human migrants to the south, frequently return too soon. Not until I hear the first sweet song of the white-throated sparrow am I convinced that spring has come to stay.
How far the weather is influenced by the changes of the moon is a disputed question. M. de Parville, a French meteorologist of note, has recently claimed that a long series of observations show that the moon which passes every month from one hemisphere to the other, influences the direction of the atmospheric currents; that the distance of the moon from the equator, or inclination of the moon’s path to the plane of the equator varies every year, passing from a maximum to a minimum limit, and that the meteorological character of a series of years appears to be mainly dependent upon the change of inclination when those extreme limits have been touched: the rainy years, the cold winters, and hot summers return periodically and coincide with certain declinations of the moon. In proof of his assertion, he presents a table tracing backward this connection between the rainy years and the moon’s declination.
In the European Magazine, vol. 60, p. 24, a table is given which has been ascribed to the astronomer Herschel. It is constructed upon a philosophical consideration of the attraction of the sun and moon in their several positions respecting the earth, suggesting to the observer what kind of weather will most probably follow the moon’s entrance into any of her quarters. Briefly summarized, the nearer the time of the moon’s entrance, at full and change or quarters, is to midnight (that is within two hours before and after midnight), the more fair the weather is in summer, but the nearer to noon, the less fair. Also, the moon’s entrance, at full, change, and quarters, during six of the afternoon hours, viz.: from four to ten, may be followed by fair weather; but this is mostly dependent on the wind. The same entrance during all the hours after midnight, except the two first, is unfavorable to fair weather.
It may be of interest to cite Bacon’s rules for prognosticating the weather, from the appearances of the moon:
1. If the new moon does not appear till the fourth day, it prognosticates a troubled air for the whole month.