delusion reiterate, with increasing positiveness of phrase, the unfounded assumption. The expression, to "try projects," is therefore taken by Mr. Drake from modern folk-lore. Fowler's address, entitled "An Account of the Life and Character of the Rev. Samuel Parris, of Salem Village, and of his Connection with the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692," was printed in the _Proceedings_ of the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass, 1862, vol. ii. pp. 49-68 and also separately (Salem, 1857). For assistance in determining the origin of Drake's statement I am indebted to Mr. Abner C. Goodell, Jr., of Salem, Mass.--_W.W.N._ Nos. 15-16.--The reader who is interested to know how much importance has been attributed to the caul will do well to consult Levinus Lemnius, _De Miraculis Occultis Naturae_. Chapter viii. of Book II. is headed: De infantium recens natorum galeis, seu tenui mollique membrana, qua facies tanquam larva, aut personata tegmine obducta, ad primum lucis intuitum se spectandam exhibet. The belief in the efficacy of the caul goes back at least to the time of St. Chrysostom, who, in the latter part of the fourth century, preached against this with kindred superstitions. Advertisements of cauls for sale, at prices ranging from twenty guineas down, have from time to time appeared in the London papers as recently as the middle of the present century, if not even later. No. 60.--See "Current Superstitions," _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, vol. ii. No. V. Nos. 116-118.--The custom of consulting in augury the occasional white spots on the finger-nails still survives, despite the protestation of old Sir Thomas Browne. He says:-- "That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our Nails, we are not averse to concede. But yet not ready to admit sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them. Nor do we observe it verified in others, what _Cardan_ discovered as a property in himself: to have found therein signs of most events that ever happened unto him. Or that there is much considerable in that doctrine of Cheiromancy, that spots in the top of the Nails do signifie things past; in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come. That White specks presage our felicity; Blue ones our misfortunes. That those in the Nail of the Thumb have significations of honour, those in the fore-Finger, of riches, and so respectively in other Fingers (according to Planetical relations, from whence they receive their names), as _Tricassus_ hath taken up, and _Picciolus_ well rejecteth." No. 148.--A very complete account of the signification of moles is quoted from "The Greenwich Fortune Teller," in Brand's _Popular Antiquities_ (Bonn's ed.), iii. 254. CHAPTERS IV. AND V.--Two of the most interesting and most accessible lists of projects and Halloween observances are Gay's well-known _Shepherds Week_ and Burns's _Halloween_.