No working in the fields to-morrow.
In order to enable the reader to study the subject of signs of the weather, I will arrange those most relied upon, in alphabetical order, for convenient reference; remarking by the way, that “all signs of rain are said to fail in dry weather.” By this you must understand that the signs here set down are only probable, not infallible, signs.
Aches and Pains in the body, of various kinds, frequently forebode rain. Persons, for example, subject to rheumatism, feel more pain in the affected limb or part of the body before a change of weather, particularly when fair is to be exchanged for wet. Old, carious teeth are also troublesome, and pains in the face, ears, and gums are sometimes experienced. Limbs once broken also ache at the place of their union, and various other aches and pains have been from time immemorial found to be signs of changes of the weather.
Animals, by some peculiar sensibility to electrical or other atmospheric influence, often indicate changes of weather by their peculiar motions and habits.
Ants.—An universal bustle and activity observed in ant hills may be generally regarded as a sign of rain. The ants frequently appear all in motion together and carry their eggs about from place to place.
Asses.—When asses bray more than ordinary, particularly if they shake their ears as if uneasy, it is said they predict rain, and particularly showers. We have noticed, that, in showery weather, a donkey, confined in a yard near the house, has brayed before every shower, and generally some minutes before the rain has fallen, as if some electrical influence, produced by the concentrating power of the approaching rain-cloud, caused a tickling in the windpipe of the animal, just before the shower came up. Whatever this electric state of the air preceding a shower may be, it seems to be the same that causes in other animals some peculiar sensations,—which makes the peacock squall the pintado call “come-back,” and which creates a variety of prognosticative motions in the different species of the animal kingdom.
An expressive English adage says,
When that the ass begins to bray,
Be sure we shall have rain that day.
We have, says the writer of the preceding, repeatedly been able to give our hay-makers useful admonitions founded solely on the braying of the ass. Thus the proverb says truly,