In Lancashire, two magpies flying together is thought unlucky. I have heard my gronny say, hoode os leef o seen two owd harries as two pynots [_magpies_].--Tim Bobbin, _Lancashire Dialect_, 31 (1775). When the magpie chatters, it denotes that you will see strangers. MAN. A person weighs more fasting than after a good meal. The Jews maintained that man has three natures--body, soul, and spirit. Diogĕnês Laertius calls the three natures body, phrên, and thumos; and the Romans called them manês, anĭma, and umbra. There is a nation of pygmies. The Patagonians are of gigantic stature. There are men with tails, as the Ghilanes, a race of men “beyond the Sennaar;” the Niam-niams, of Africa, the Narea tribes, certain others south of Herrar, in Abyssinia, and the natives in the south of Formosa. MARTIN. It is unlucky to kill a martin. MOLE. Moles are blind. Hence the common expression, “Blind as a mole.” Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may not Hear a footfall. Shakespeare, _The Tempest_, act. iv. sc. 1 (1609). MOON-CALF, the offspring of a woman, engendered solely by the power of the moon.--Pliny, _Natural History_, x. 64. MOUSE. To eat food which a mouse has nibbled, will give a sore throat. It is a bad omen if a mouse gnaws the clothes which a person is wearing.--Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 214 (1621). A fried mouse is a specific for small-pox. OSTRICH. An ostrich can digest iron. _Stephen._ I could eat the very hilts for anger. _Kno´well._ A sign of your good digestion; you have an ostrich stomach.--B. Jonson, _Every Man in His Humor_, iii. 1 (1598). I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword.--Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI._ act iv. sc. 10 (1591). OWL. If owls screech with a hoarse and dismal voice, it bodes impending calamity. (See OWL.) The oulê that of deth the bodê bringeth. Chaucer, _Assembly of Foules_ (1358). PELICAN. A pelican feeds its young brood with its blood. The pelican turneth her beak against her brest, and therewith pierceth it till the blood gush, wherewith she nourisheth her young.--Eugenius Philalethes, _Brief Natural History_, 93. Then sayd the Pellycane, “When my byrdts be slayne, With my bloude I them reuyue [_revive_],” Scrypture doth record, The same dyd our Lord, And rose from deth to lyue [_life_]. Skelton, _Armoury of Byrdts_ (died 1529). And, like the kind, life rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood. Shakespeare, _Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 5 (1596). PHŒNIX. There is but one phœnix in the world, which, after many hundred years, burns itself, and from its ashes another phœnix rises up. Now I will believe, ... that in Arabia There is one tree, the phœnix’ throne; one phœnix At this hour reigning there.