Why vanes should have been so generally shaped like a crowing chanticleer as to give rise to the more common name of “weathercocks” is not easily determined. Of a few explanations seen or heard, none had a modicum of common sense. When and where, too, the first vane was set up, whether cock or arrow, is an unsolvable problem. Possibly it is necessary to grope backward into prehistoric times; although Rütimeyer does not give the common fowl as one of the birds found in the _débris_ beneath the ancient lake-dwellings of Switzerland. It may be added, too, that chickens are not weather prophets, as are geese and peacocks; notwithstanding they figure somewhat conspicuously in all animal weather-lore, and have done so since 250 B. C., if not earlier. Aratus, in his Diosemeia, or Prognostics, for instance, claims that a cock, when unusually restless or noisy, foretells a coming storm, and this nonsense is believed to-day by a fair proportion of our rural population. Of course, modifications of this are well-nigh innumerable, and one of them, when a small boy, I found useful. If a cock came to the open kitchen door, company was coming—such was the firm conviction of a trio of aunts who ruled the household. Now, company-coming meant pie or pudding, and to a small boy this means a great deal. Acting upon it, the crowing of a cock was faithfully practiced in the woods, and then, while my brother singled out a rooster and drove it to the door, I crowed lustily from behind the lilac-bushes; and the _ruse_ brought pie and pudding more than once, but not too often to weaken these credulous women’s faith. I have mentioned a dry storm with the wind due east. There was one such at the close of the first week in April, 1889. The air was exasperatingly chilly. Even the frogs in the marshes were silent, and humanity was ill-natured and despondent. While standing on the lee side of an old oak I chanced upon a glorious weathercock—one that would shame the despairing thoughts of any reasonable man. That prince of winter birds, a crested tit, sat long upon a leafless twig facing the cruel east wind, sat there and sang, clinging, as for dear life, to the swaying branch, _T’sweet here! T’sweet here!_ the burden of its song; the ever-hopeful story of this incomparable bird. What if the east wind did blow? Was there not, here and there, a trembling violet in the woods; a filmy veil of white where the whitlow grasses bloomed; a flashing of the maple’s ruddy fire where the fitful sunshine fell? All these gave promise to the brave-hearted bird, of spring as coming, if not quite here. Let me take the hint. Give me just such a weathercock for each day of the year. Apple-Blossoms. During the whole of April, the old apple-trees in the lane are closely watched, and not without a deal of impatience, too. “Will they blossom freely?” is asked almost daily, and what a world of anticipation hinges upon this wondrous wealth of bloom!