The country-lasses in Sweden count the cuckoo's call to ascertain how many years they have still to remain unmarried; but they generally shut their ears and run away when they have heard it a few times. Should a girl hear it oftener than ten times, she will declare rather vexedly that she is not superstitious, and that she has not the least faith in the cuckoo's call. WHISTLING. "Why! he makes music with his mouth!" exclaimed a native of Burmah when he observed an American missionary whistling; and the missionary noted down the words in his journal, with the reflection: "It is remarkable that the Burmese are entirely ignorant of whistling."[23] But may not the simple-minded Asiatic only have been astonished in observing what he thought unbecoming in a gentleman who had come to Burmah to teach a new religion? The Arabs generally disapprove of whistling, called by them _el sifr_. Some maintain that the whistler's mouth is not to be purified for forty days; while others are of opinion that Satan touching a man's person causes him to produce the offensive sound.[24] The natives of the Tonga Islands, Polynesia, consider it wrong to whistle, as being disrespectful to their gods.[25] In European countries people are met with who object to whistling on a certain day of the week, or at certain times of the day. The villagers in some districts of North Germany have the saying, that if one whistles in the evening it makes the angels weep. The villagers in Iceland say that even if one swings about him a stick, whip, wand, or aught that makes a whistling sound, he scares from him the Holy Ghost; while other Icelanders, who consider themselves free from superstitions, cautiously give the advice: "Do it not; for who knoweth what is in the air?"[26] There seem to have been, however, in all ages light-hearted persons who, defying the superstitious views of their compatriots, have whistled to their heart's content, or for the amusement of those who set at nought popular prejudices. Joseph Strutt, in his 'Sports and Pastimes of the People of England' records the astonishing performance of a whistler who, assuming the name of Rossignol, exhibited at the end of the last century his talent on the stage of Covent Garden Theatre. Again, an amusing account is given in the 'Spectator' (Vol. VIII., No. 570) of a skilful whistler, who was the host of the tavern especially patronised by Addison and Steele; and the writer concludes his description of the host's surprising talent by recommending his readers to repair to the tavern and to order a bottle of wine for the sake of the whistling.