If a crow flutters about a window and caws, it forbodes a death. Night crowes screech aloud, Fluttering ’bout casements of departing soules. Marston, _Antonio and Mellida_, ii. (1602). Several crows fluttered about the head of Cicero on the day that he was murdered by Popilius Lænas ... one of them even made its way into his chamber, and pulled away the bedclothes.--Macaulay, _History of St. Kilda_, 176. If crows flock together early in the morning, and gape at the sun, the weather will be hot and dry; but if they stalk at nightfall into water, and croak, rain is at hand.--Willsford, _Nature’s Secrets_, 133. When crows forsake a wood in a flock, it forebodes a famine.--_Supplement to the Athenian Oracle_, 476. DEATH-WATCH. The clicking or tapping of the beetle called a death-watch is an omen of death to some one in the house. Chamber-maids christen this worm a “Death-watch,” Because, like a watch, it always cries “click;” Then woe be to those in the house that are sick, For sure as a gun they will give up the ghost ... But a kettle of scalding hot water injected Infallibly cures the timber infected; The omen is broken, the danger is over, The maggot will die, and the sick will recover. Swift, _Wood an Insect_ (1725). DOG. If dogs howl by night near a house, it presages the death of a sick inmate. If doggs howle in the night neer an house where somebody is sick, ’tis a signe of death.--Dr. N. Home, _Dæmonologie_, 60. When dogs wallow in the dust, expect foul weather: “Canis in pulvere volutans....” Præscia ventorum, se volvit odora canum vis; Numina difflatur pulveris instar homo. Robert Keuchen, _Crepundia_, 211. ECHINUS. An echīnus, fastening itself on a ship’s keel, will arrest its motion like an anchor.--Pliny, _Natural History_, xxxii. 1. EGG. The tenth egg is always the largest. Decumana ova dicuntur, quia ovum decimum majus nascitur.--Festus. ELEPHANT. Elephants celebrate religious rites.--Pliny, _Natural History_, viii. 1. Elephants have no knees.--Eugenius Philalethes, _Brief Natural History_, 89. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are for necessity, not for flexure.--Shakespeare, _Troilus and Cressida_, act iii. sc. 3 (1602). FISH. If you count the number of fish you have caught, you will catch no more that day. FROG. To meet a frog is lucky, indicating that the person is about to receive money. Some man hadde levyr to mete a frogge on the way than a knight ... for than they say and ’leve that they shal have golde.--_Dives and Pauper_ (first precepte, xlvi. 1493). When frogs croak more than usual, it is a sign of bad weather. GUINEA-PIG. A guinea-pig has no ears.