Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, says: “Many ways doth nature also by Flies play with the fancies of men in dreams, if we may credit Apomasaris in his Apotelesms. For the Indians, Persians, and Ægyptians do teach, that if Flies appear to us in our sleep, it doth signifie an herauld at arms, or an approaching disease. If a general of an army, or a chief commander, dream that at such or such a place he should see a great company of Flies, in that very place, wherever it shall be, there he shall be in anguish and grief for his soldiers that are slain, his army routed, and the victory lost. If a mean or ordinary man dream the like, he shall fall into a violent fever, which likely may cost him his life. If a man dream in his sleep that Flies went into his mouth or nostrils, he is to expect with great sorrow and grief imminent destruction from his enemies.”[975] In an English North country chap-book, entitled the Royal Dream-book, we find: “To dream of Flies or other vermin, denotes enemies of all sorts.”[976] “When we see,” says Hollingshed, “a great number of Flies in a yeare, we naturallie iudge it like to be a great plague.”[977] Among the deep-sea fishermen of Greenock (Scotland), there is a most comical idea that if a Fly falls into a glass from which any one has been drinking, or is about to drink, it is considered a sure omen of good luck to the drinker, and is always noticed as such by the company.[978] Has this any connection with our saying of “taking a glass with a _fly_ in it?” If Flies die in great numbers in a house, it is believed by the common people to be a sure sign of death to some one in the family occupying it; if throughout the country, an omen of general pestilence. It is positively asserted that Flies always die before the breaking out of the cholera, and believed that they die of this disease. Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, says: “When the Flies bite harder than ordinary, making at the face and eyes of men, they foretell rain or wet weather, from whence Politian hath it: Thirsty for blood the Fly returns, And with his sting the skin he burns.