To leave a teapot lid open undesignedly is an indication that a stranger is coming; and when a cock crows in your doorway, or a bit of black stuff hangs on the bar of the grate, it is a sign of a similar event. It is believed in many districts that some persons have white livers, and that if a woman marry a man having such a phenomenon inside him, she must die within twelve months. The first time a baby is taken out of the lying-in room the nurse must carry it to the highest part of the house for good luck, and that it may "rise in the world." The colliers at Dudley, in the event of a fatal accident to one of their number, all in the same pit immediately cease from working until the body is buried. A certain sum is also spent in drink, and is called "dead money." The same custom, more or less modified, prevails in many districts. The "seventh son of a seventh son" is believed to be endowed with extraordinary curative powers in certain diseases, and the same with regard to a daughter under similar circumstances. In the vicinity of the Malvern hills there is a superstition among the poorer people that when any one is bitten by a viper--which reptile is occasionally to be met with in bushy ground about the southern part of the range--if it can be killed forthwith, an ointment made from its liver will be a specific for the wound. A "handsel," or first money received for an article sold, if taken from a particular person or under particular circumstances, Mr. Lees says, is supposed to be productive of good luck; and some complain that they cannot do business for want of a handsel from the person of whom they wish to receive it. In the year 1643, when some thieves plundered the house of Mr. Rowland Bartlett, at Castle Morton, among other things they took a "cock eagle stone, for which thirty pieces had been offered by a physician, but refused." These eagle stones were ætites, a variety of argillaceous oxide of iron; they were hollow, with a kernel or nucleus, sometimes moveable, and always differing from the exterior in colour and density. The ancients superstitiously believed that this pebble was found in the eagle's nest, and that the eggs could not be hatched without its assistance. Many other absurd stories were raised about this fossil.