11. There is the way of foretelling death by a cry, that they call taisk, which some call a wraith, in the lowland. They hear a loud cry without doors, exactly resembling the voice of some particular person, whose death is foretold by it, of which he gives a late instance, which happened in the village Rigg, in Skye isle.
12. Things are also foretold by smelling, sometimes, as follows: Fish or flesh is frequently smelt in the fire, when at the same time neither of the two are in the house, or, in any probability, like to be had in it for some weeks or months. This smell several persons have who are endued with the second-sight, and it is always accomplished soon after.
13. Children, horses, and cows, have the second-sight, as well as men and women advanced in years.
That children see it, it is plain, from their crying aloud at the very instant that a corpse or any other vision appears to an ordinary seer; of which he gives an instance in a child when himself was present.
That horses likewise see it is very plain, from their violent and sudden starting, when the rider, or seer in company with them, sees a vision of any kind by night or day. It is observable of a horse, that he will not go forward that way, till he be led about at some distance from the common road, and then he is in a sweat; he gives an instance of this in a horse in the Isle of Skye.
That cows have the second-sight appears from this; that if a woman milking a cow happens to see a vision by the second-sight, the cow runs away in a great fright at the same time, and will not be pacified for some time after.
In reference to this, Paracelsus, tom. ix. l. de arte presagâ, writes thus; "Horses also have their auguries, who perceive, by their sight and smell, wandering spirits, witches, and spectres, and the like things; and dogs both see and hear the same."
Here in the next place the author answers objections that have lately been made against the reality of the second-sight.
First, it is objected, that these seers are visionary and melancholy people, who fancy they see things that do not appear to them or anybody else.
He answers, the people of these isles, and particularly the seers, are very temperate, and their diet is simple and moderate in quantity and quality; so that their brains are not, in all probability, disordered by undigested fumes of meat or drink. Both sexes are free from hysteric fits, convulsions, and several other distempers of that sort. There are no madmen among them, nor any instance of self-murder. It is observed among them, that a man drunk, never has a vision of the second-sight; and he that is a visionary would discover himself in other things as well as in that; nor are such as have the second-sight, judged to be visionaries by any of their friends or acquaintance.