It is said that the late Horace Greeley always kept a rusty one over the door of his sanctum. To begin anything on Friday was sure to end badly. I had an esteemed friend, the late sheriff of the county of ----, who faithfully believed this, and adhered to it up to the time of his death. May was considered an unlucky month to marry in, and when I was thinking of this matter a number of years later, and wished the event to occur during the month, my wish was objected to on this ground, and the ceremony deferred until June in consequence. It is said that the honey bee came to America with the Pilgrim Fathers. Whether this be so or not I am unprepared to say. If it be true, then there were loyalists among them, for they found their way to Canada with the U. E.'s, and contributed very considerably to the enjoyment of the table. Short-cake and honey were things not to be despised in those days, I remember. There was a curious custom that prevailed of blowing horns and pounding tin pans to keep the bees from going away when swarming. The custom is an Old Country one, I fancy. The reader will remember that Dickens, in "Little Dorrit," makes Ferdinand Barnacle say: "You really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle." Another peculiar notion prevailed with respect to discovering the proper place to dig wells. There were certain persons, I do not remember what they were called, whether water doctors or water witches, who professed to be able, with the aid of a small hazel crotched twig, which was held firmly in both hands with the crotch inverted, to tell where a well should be sunk with a certainty of finding water. The process was simply to walk about with the twig thus held, and when the right place was reached, the forked twig would turn downwards, however firmly held; and on the strength of this, digging would be commenced in the place indicated. A curious feature about this was that there were but very few in whose hands the experiment would work, and hence the water discoverer was a person of some repute. I never myself witnessed the performance, but it was of common occurrence. [Footnote: The reader will remember the occult operations of Dousterswivel in the seventeenth chapter of Scott's _Antiquary._ "In truth, the German was now got to a little copse- thicket at some distance from the ruins, where he affected busily to search for such a wand as should suit the purpose of his mystery; and after cutting off a small twig of hazel terminating in a forked end, which he pronounced to possess the virtue proper for the experiment that he was about to exhibit, holding the forked ends of the wand each between the finger and the thumb, and thus keeping the rod upright, he proceeded to pace the ruined aisles," &c. So it will be seen that we had Canadian successors of Dousterswivel in my time, but we had no Oldbucks.]