use of man and beast are still collected when their "proper planets are ruling" in the heavens. More copies of Culpepper's _Herbal_ and Sibley's _Astrology_ are sold in Lancashire than all other works on the same subjects put together, and this principally on account of the planetary influence with which each disease and its antidote are connected. Old Moore's _Almanac_, however, is now sadly at a discount, because it lacks the table of the Moon's signs; the farmers are consequently at a loss to know which will be healthy cattle, and hence they prefer a spurious edition which supplies the grave omission. Several lucky stones for the protection of cattle have, within a few years past, been procured by the writer from the "shippons" of those who, in other respects, are not counted behind the age; and it would have been easy to collect an ample stock of horse-shoes and rusty sickles from the same sources. However, during the last forty years the inhabitants of Lancashire have made rapid progress both in numbers and intelligence. They have had the "schoolmaster abroad" amongst them, and have consequently divested themselves of many of the grosser superstitions which formed a portion of the popular faith of their immediate predecessors; but there is yet a dense substratum of popular opinions existing in those localities which have escaped the renovating influences of the spindle or the rail. As time progresses many of these will become further modified, or perhaps totally disappear; and hence it may be desirable to secure a permanent record of the customs and superstitions of the county.