P. J. F. GANTILLON, B.A. * * * * * FOLK LORE. _Irish Superstitious Customs._--The following strange practices of the Irish are described in a MS. of the sixteenth century, and seem to have a Pagan origin: "Upon Maie Eve they will drive their cattell upon their neighbour's corne, to eate the same up; they were wont to begin from the rast, and this principally upon the English churl. Onlesse they do so upon Maie daie, the witch hath power upon their cattell all the yere following." The next paragraph observes that "they spitt in the face; Sir R. Shee spat in Ladie ---- face." Spenser alludes to spitting on a person for luck, and I have experienced the ceremony myself. H. _Charm for Warts._--I remember in Leicestershire seeing the following charm employed for removal of a number of warts on my brother, then a child about five years old. In the month of April or May he was taken to an ash-tree by a lady, who carried also a paper of fresh pins; one of these was first struck through the bark, and then pressed through the wart until it produced pain: it was then taken out and stuck into the tree. Each wart was thus treated, a separate pin being used for each. The warts certainly disappeared in about six weeks. I saw the same tree a year or two again, when it was very thickly studded over with old pins, each the index of a cured wart. T. J. Liverpool. _The Devil._-- "According to the superstition of the west countries if you meet the devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or force him to disappear by spitting over his horns."--_Essays on his own Times_, by S. T. Coleridge, vol. iii. p. 967. J. M. B. If you sing before breakfast you will cry before supper. If you wish to have luck, never shave on a Monday. J. M. B. _"Winter Thunder," &c._--I was conversing the other day with a very old farmer on the disastrous rains and storms of the present season, when he told me that he thought we had not yet seen the worst; and gave as a reason the following proverb: "Winter thunder and summer flood Bode England no good." H. T. Ingatestone Hall, Essex. * * * * * MALTA THE BURIAL-PLACE OF HANNIBAL. Malta affords a fine field for antiquarian research; and in no part more so than in the neighbourhood of Citta Vecchia, where for some distance the ground is dotted with tombs which have already been opened.