Bugs and flies are particularly annoying before a storm and it is surprising that the spider should not take advantage of this to get a meal. But spiders are cautious and they never spin a web on the grass, at least on the day that brings a storm. The insects do not fly so high on these weather-breeding days and consequently the birds that feed on them fly lower. The chimney swifts are a particularly good guide to the different altitudes at which insects fly.
The stars are on a par with bugs as weather guides, although there are many proverbs that grant them much. One circumstance should not be neglected, however, and that is that wind mixes air and when air is well mixed atmospheric inequalities are less disturbing to vision. Hence when one can see the stars and the moon well wind currents are oftenest the cause. Even if it is not blowing on earth these wind currents may yet be blowing above to reach the earth later. In this way cold waves arrive. There is an old proverb about this condition, applying it to the moon, “Sharp horns do threaten windy weather.”
But the stars are of second rate importance because they are so soon obscured. If you can’t see them it is cloudy, but you do not know what kind of cloud it is. If only the brightest show, a veil of cirrus is arriving. A dark sky with only a few dim stars is an omen of storms. If the stars twinkle it is because the varying currents of the upper air are in juxtaposition. If they twinkle while the northwest wind is on it is a sign of colder weather,—not because they are twinkling but because of the northwest wind.
In the days when almanacs were the sole guides to the weather a man with a sense of humor, Butler by name, got out one and dedicated it to “Torpid Liver and Inflammatory Rheumatism, the Most Insistent Weather Prophets Known to Suffering Mortals.” Rheumatism is following the almanac to the scrap heap, and it would be harder for a camper to guess what a torpid liver was like than to forecast the weather, yet for the majority of “suffering mortals” there is still much truth in the amiable observation of Mr. Butler,
“As old sinners have old points
O’ the compass in their bones and joints.”
CHAPTER V
THE BAROMETER
Whatever the foregoing chapters may imply as to the whole world going camping the fact is that the woods are still, unfortunately, for the few. The woodsman must yield gracefully to the suburbanite,—in numbers.