The belief in the =evil eye= is not only widely spread, but extremely ancient, and in some places is still firmly rooted among the folk. ‘Overlooking’ may be intentional, but it is believed that many persons, without intention and even against their will, by the glance of their eye, have caused injurious effects; so that, in some cases, mothers would not venture to expose their infants to the look of their own fathers. Plutarch (18, 13) vouches for this, and admits that envy exerts an evil influence through the eyes, and adds that it is wise to employ charms and antidotes to turn aside these evil glances. A friend of his stated that some even fascinate themselves by their own gaze, and alluded to the story of Eutelidas, who, like Narcissus, fell a victim to the admiration he felt for his own likeness. Women and children seem to have been accounted by all old classical writers as the most liable to injury. Among the Greeks and Romans statues of Nemesis were erected which were adored and invoked to save their worshippers from fascination. In Rome, according to Pliny, special laws were enacted against injury to crops by incantation, excantation, or fascination (18, 15). ‘Eat not the bread of him that hath an evil eye’ is just as much a maxim to-day as it was in the time of Solomon, and Mr. Elworthy says (18, 107) in Naples, at the appearance of a person having this reputation, a cry of ‘Jettatore!’ is passed, and even in a crowded street it causes an instantaneous vanishing of everybody—a rush up entries, into shops, or elsewhere. Ever since the establishment of the religious orders, monks have had the special reputation of possessing the fatal influence. The last Pope but one, Pius the Ninth, was firmly believed to have had the evil eye. A Roman would candidly say: ‘Nothing succeeds with anybody or anything when he wishes well to it. When he went to St. Agnese to hold a great festival, down went the floor, and the people were all smashed together. Then he visited the column to the Madonna in the Piazza di Spagna, and blessed it and the workmen; of course, one fell from the scaffold the same day and killed himself’ (18, 23, 25). Domestic animals always have been considered as peculiarly susceptible to this evil influence. Cows are particularly liable to fascination in Scotland, while in England of all animals the pig is most often ‘overlooked.’ The Turk and the Arab think the same of their horses and camels; above all the Neapolitan cabman of to-day believes in the great danger to his horse from the eye of the _jettatore_.