The credit attachable to _Madagascar: or Robert Drury's Journal during fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island_, has always appeared to me a subject worth a Note in your pages; but more particularly since the recent publication of Burton's _Narratives from the Criminal Trials of Scotland_. In this latter work the author gives us an interesting account of the trial of Captain Green and his associates, in Edinburgh, for the murder of one Captain Drummond (a very memorable case, as it bore upon the Union of the kingdoms, at the time under discussion); and in course of his inquiries Mr. Burton has brought forth Drury's _Journal_ to prove the existence of the said Captain Drury for many years subsequent to Green's execution for his murder! It becomes, therefore, a serious question to ascertain whether Drury was a real or a fictitious character, and his book what it pretends to be, or the speculation of some clever writer, envious of the fame and profit derived by Defoe from the publication of a similar work. I would not take the subject out of such good hands as those of MR. CROSSLEY, who has evidently something to offer us thereon; but would merely observe, by way of interesting your readers generally in the matter, that Drury, by the old octavo of 1729, now before me, did not flinch from inquiry, as he announces the book for sale "by the Author, at Old Tom's Coffee House in Birchin Lane," where, he says, "I am every day to be spoken with, and where I shall be ready to gratify any Gentleman with a further Account of any Thing herein contained; {534} to stand the strictest Examination, or to confirm those Things which to some may seem doubtful." "Old Tom's" is still a right good chop-house in the locality named; and it would be interesting to know if there is any contemporaneous note existing of an evening with Robert Drury there. But for the misfortune of living a century and a quarter too late, I should doubtless often have found myself in the same box with the mysterious man, with his piles of books, and his maps of Madagascar, invitingly displayed for the examination of the curious, and the satisfaction of the sceptical. J. O. * * * * * FOLK LORE. _Gabriel Hounds._--Seeing that MR. YARRELL, the distinguished ornithologist, is a contributor to "N. & Q.," may I ask that gentleman, or any other correspondent, what is the species of bird whose peculiar yelping cry during its nocturnal migrations, has given rise to the superstition of the "Gabriel Hounds," so common in some rural districts? D. _Weather Prophecy._--Can any of your correspondents inform me as to the truth or falsehood of a proverb I have heard, namely, that the dryness or wetness of a summer may be prognosticated by observing whether the oak or the ash tree comes first into leaf? I cannot recollect which denoted which; but I should much like to know whether there is such a proverb, and whether there is any truth in it. G. E. G. Oxford.