Then the weather-wise know there are two kinds of clouds, rain-clouds and wind-clouds, and that the latter are always the most portentous. In summer they are black as night; they look as if they would blot out the very earth. They raise a great dust, and set things flying and slamming for a moment, and that is all. They are the veritable wind-bags of Æolus. There is something in the look of rain-clouds that is unmistakable,—a firm, gray, tightly woven look that makes you remember your umbrella. Not too high nor too low, not black nor blue, but the form and hue of wet, unbleached linen. You see the river water in them; they are heavy-laden, and move slow. Sometimes they develop what are called “mares’ tails,”—small cloud-forms here and there against a heavy background, that look like the stroke of a brush, or the streaming tail of a charger. Sometimes a few under-clouds will be combed and groomed by the winds or other meteoric agencies at work, as if for a race. I have seen coming storms develop well-defined vertebræ,—a long backbone of cloud, with the articulations and processes clearly marked. Any of these forms, changing, growing, denote rain, because they show unusual agencies at work. The storm is brewing and fermenting. “See those cowlicks,” said an old farmer, pointing to certain patches on the clouds; “they mean rain.” Another time, he said the clouds were “making bag,” had growing udders, and that it would rain before night, as it did. This reminded me that the Orientals speak of the clouds as cows which the winds herd and milk. In the winter, we see the sun wading in snow. The morning has perhaps been clear, but in the afternoon a bank of gray filmy or cirrus cloud meets him in the west, and he sinks deeper and deeper into it, till, at his going down, his muffled beams are entirely hidden. Then, on the morrow, _not_ “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,” but silent as night, the white legions are here. The old signs seldom fail,—a red and angry sunrise, or flushed clouds at evening. Many a hope of rain have I seen dashed by a painted sky at sunset. There is truth in the old couplet, too:— “If it rains before seven, It will clear before eleven.” An old Indian had a sign for winter: “If the wind blows the snow off the trees, the next storm will be snow; if it rains off, the next storm will be rain.” Morning rains are usually short-lived. Better wait till ten o’clock. When the clouds are chilled, they turn blue and rise up. When the fog leaves the mountains, reaching upward, as if afraid of being left behind, the fair weather is near.