Horses, as well as some other domestic animals, foretell the coming of rain by starting more than ordinary, and appearing in other respects restless and uneasy on the road.
Incubus or nightmare, though it commonly comes of a loaded stomach, will nevertheless often occur on the occasion of a change of weather in the night, which seems to produce the effect by disturbing the digestive organs. The same observation holds good with regard to those frightful and impressive dreams which some persons have in particular kinds of weather, and about the period of change.
Lamps, from the manner in which they burn, forebode change of weather. Before rain they burn less bright, the flame snaps and crackles, and a sort of fungous excrescence grows from the wicks, which Virgil was mindful to put among his prognostics of rain and wind.
Mare’s Tails, or cormoid curlclouds in the sky, forebode wind, and sometimes rain.
Moon.—The prognostics from the looks of the moon are various, and were known of old. When she looks fiery, or red, like the color of copper, wind is generally to be suspected; when pale, or confused with ill-defined edges, rain; when very clear and bright, fine weather.
When the moon is near the full, or new, people are more irritable than at other times, and headaches and diseases of various kinds are worse. Insanity at these times has its worst paroxysms, and hence the origin of the term lunacy. Timber cut in the last quarter of the moon is said to be much the most durable. About the time of full moon the weather is generally fair. The changes of the moon are supposed to bring changes of weather.
Thus we have given a chapter upon signs, and, although they are not all to be relied upon, they may be worthy of notice.
“Job Printing—Job Printing!” exclaimed an old woman, the other day, as she peeped over her specs at the advertising page of a country paper—“Poor Job; they’ve kept him printing, week after week, ever since I first larnt to read, and if he wasn’t the most patientest man that ever was, he never could have stood it as long, nohow!”