In most parts of the United Kingdom, it is deemed unlucky to kill a robin, the red breast of the bird being attributed to its having been sprinkled with the blood of our Lord as He hung upon the cross; even as the cross on the back of the ass is connected in the rustic mind with our Lord's entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass. According to the paper in the _Book of Days_, a common saying in Suffolk is, 'You must not take robin's eggs; if you do, you will get your legs broken.' The writer of it also relates the following anecdote. '"How badly you write!" I said one day to a boy in our parish school; "your hand shakes so that you can't hold the pen steady. Have you been running hard, or anything of that sort?" "No," replied the lad; "it always shakes: I once had a robin die in my hand; and they say that if a robin dies in your hand, it will always shake."' In some parts of England it is considered very unlucky to have no money in your pocket when you hear the cuckoo for the first time in the season. So perhaps it is, when it indicates the usual condition of the pocket. Some insects, as well as birds, are deemed ominous of evil. There are many, even among educated people, who cannot hear the ticking of the little beetle called the death-watch without a feeling of fear; and among the vulgar, the belief is universal that it presages death in the house. And yet it is only the male insect knocking his head against the woodwork as a signal to his mate. In some parts of England the elephant hawk-moth is regarded not only as presaging, but as producing murrain. The death's-head moth is regarded with even greater aversion. This large moth, nowhere very common, has markings on the back and thorax somewhat resembling a skull and cross-bones; hence it inspires a superstitious terror, and its appearance is believed to be the harbinger of pestilence and woe. The ghost-moth inspires similar alarm. The female is of a dull brown colour; the upper surface of the male is of a silvery whiteness. In the evening the male makes his appearance, hovering over the grass in which the female lurks, often in churchyards where the grass is green and luxuriant. If alarmed, the insect disappears in an instant, settling on the ground; but by-and-by appears again hovering over the same spot. The ignorant rustic imagines it to be a ghost; and even if it were caught and shewn to him, he would be hard to be persuaded that it has no occult relation to the dead, or that its appearance is not ominous of evil to the living. Perhaps the most curious of all the popular superstitions concerning insects (and we could narrate many) is one which prevails, in Suffolk at least, as to bees. It is deemed unlucky that a stray swarm of bees should settle on your premises, unclaimed by the owner; it presages a death in the family within a year. A popular belief in Suffolk is that it is unlucky to kill a _harvestman_--a long-legged spider, very common in the fields