Again, an old salt, who had perhaps heard of Galileo’s theory, once tried to illustrate to me the movement of the tides by comparing it to that of a man turning over in bed, and dragging the bedclothes with him, his notion being that as the world turned round, the waters of the ocean were acted upon in a like manner.
To resume the catalogue:—
A bee was never caught in the rain—that is, if the bee scents rain, it keeps near the hive. If, on the contrary, it flies far, the day will be fair. The ancients believed this industrious little creature possessed of almost human intelligence.
When the squirrels lay in a greater store of nuts than usual, expect a cold winter.
If the November goose-bone be thick, so will the winter weather be unusually severe. This prediction appears as regularly as the return of the seasons.
Many meteors falling presage much snow.
“If it rains before seven,
It will clear before eleven.”
“You can tell before two.
What it’s going to do.”
There will be as many snow-storms in a winter as there are days remaining in the month after the first fall of snow.
Children are told, of the falling snow, that the old woman, up in the sky, is shaking her feather-bed.