Mr. Ruskin says that he was not aware of this last weather-sign; nor, he supposes, was the Duke of Hamilton's keeper, who shot the last pair of choughs on Arran in 1863. He trusts that the climate has wept for them, and is certain that the Coniston clouds grow heavier in these his last years. All the birds of the swallow kind fly high at the advent of or during fine weather, and low before a storm. These facts are accounted for by another. When the weather is calm the ephemeræ upon which swallows feed fly high in air, but just over the earth or water if it be rough. The cry of the chaffinch has already been mentioned; in Scotland the children say, "Weet-weet [the cry], Dreep-dreep" [the consequence]. In Hampshire swans are believed to be hatched in thunderstorms; and it is said that those on the Thames have an instinctive prescience of floods. Before heavy rains they raise their nests. This is characteristic of many birds, which add piles of material to their nests to prevent swamping. When rooks fly high, and seem to imitate birds of prey by soaring, swooping, and falling, it is an almost certain sign of coming storms. Staying in the vicinity of the rookery, returning at mid-day, or coming to roost in groups, are also said to be omens to the like effect. Various proverbs would seem to indicate that the cry of the owl, heard in bad weather, foretells a change. The constant iteration of the green woodpecker's cry before a storm has given it the name of rain-bird, rain-pie, and rain-fowl. Storm-cock is a provincial name shared by this bird and the missel-thrush, the latter often singing through gales of wind and rain. Storm-bird is also applied to the fieldfare. The abhorrence in which the mariners hold the swallow-like storm-petrel is well known; its appearance is believed to denote wild weather. This little bird is the Mother Carey's chicken of sailors, and is also called storm-finch and water-witch. Herons, says an old author, flying up and down in the evening, as if doubtful where to rest, "presage some evill approaching weather"--a legend as old as Virgil, though probably devoid of foundation. Concerning gulls in general, children who live by the sea say "Seagull, seagull, sit on the sand; It's never good weather while you're on the land;" and fisherfolk know that when the seamews fly out early and far to seaward fair weather may be expected. To Scotch shepherds the drumming of snipe indicates dry weather and frost at night; and Gilbert White remarks that woodcocks have been observed to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather; while, according to another author, their early arrival and continuance "foretells a liberal harvest." In Wiltshire the coming of the dotterel betokens frost and snow, and there is a proverb that the booming of the bittern will be followed by rain or worse. In Morayshire, when the wild geese go out to sea they say the weather will be fine; but if towards the hill, stormy. The saw-like note of the