_Wassailing Orchards in Sussex._--I am happy to be able to send you the following particulars respecting the apple-tree superstitions, as they prevail in this county; and it is as _well to preserve_ the _recollection_ of them, for I suspect they are wearing away. In this neighbourhood (Chailey) the custom of wassailing the orchards still remains. It is called apple-howling. A troop of boys visit the different orchards, and encircling the apple-trees they repeat the following words: "Stand fast root, bear well top, Pray the God send us a good howling crop. Every twig, apples big, Every bough, apples enow. Hats full, caps full, Full quarters, sacks full." They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on the cow's horn; during this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks. This custom is alluded to in Herrick's _Hesperides_, p. 311. "Wassail the trees that they may beare You, many a plum, and many a peare, For more or less fruits they will bring, As you do give them _wassailing_." R. W. B. _Lucky Omens._--"The schoolmaster with his primer in his hand," to quote Lord Brougham, is unquestionably abroad, and dispelling, with surprising rapidity, the prejudices of the people; in some cases, perhaps, to make way for prejudices yet stronger and more tenacious than those they displace. You are doing good service by collecting and recording some of those that are fast disappearing. In this neighbourhood I know ladies who consider it "lucky" to find _old iron_; a horse shoe or a rusty nail is carefully conveyed home and hoarded up. It is also considered lucky if you see the _head_ of the first lamb in spring; to present his _tail_ is the certain harbinger of misfortune. It is also said that if you have money in your pocket the first time you hear the cuckoo, you will never be without all the year. The magpie is a well-known bird of omen. The following lines were familiar when I was a boy: "One for sorrow, two for mirth, Three for a wedding, four for death; Five for a fiddle, six for a dance, Seven for England, eight for France." T. D. _Lambs._--The Denbighshire peasantry watch with great anxiety for the position in which young lambs are seen by them the first time in the year. If their heads are towards them it is lucky; if their tails, great misfortunes will ensue. AGMOND.