23. In olden times, the cat sneezing appears to have been considered as a lucky omen to a bride who was to be married the next day. 24. Small spiders, termed _money spinners_, are held by many to prognosticate good luck, if they are not destroyed or injured, or removed from the person on whom they are first observed. In the “Secret Memoirs” of Mr. Duncan Campbell, in the chapter of omens, we read that “others have thought themselves secure of receiving money, if by chance a little spider fell upon their clothes.” (See 33.) 25. It is extremely unlucky, says Grose, to kill a lady-bug, a swallow, robin redbreast, or wren. There is a particular distich, he adds, in favor of the robin and wren: “A robin and a wren Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.” Persons killing any of the above-named birds or insects, or destroying their nests, will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune. On the contrary, it is deemed lucky to have swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house, or in the chimneys. In an old pastoral published in London, 1770, the following occurs: “I found a _robin’s nest_ within our shed, And in the barn a _wren_ had young ones bred. I never take away their nest, nor try To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die. Dick took a wren’s nest from his cottage side, And ere a twelvemonth past his mother dy’d.” 26. It is deemed very unlucky to hear a screech-owl at night. “If an owl,” says Bourne, “which is reckoned a most abominable and unlucky bird, send forth its hoarse and dismal voice, it is the omen of the approach of some terrible thing--that some dire calamity and some great misfortune is at hand.” (See 56.) This omen occurs in Chaucer: “The jelous swan, ayenst hys deth that singeth, The _oule_ eke, that of deth the bode bringeth.” The following lines occur in the old pastoral before quoted in 25: “Within my cot, where quiet gave me rest, Let the dread screech-owl build her hated nest, And from my window o’er the country send Her midnight screams to bode my latter end.”