The countryman has abundant opportunity of studying the varying aspects of Nature, hence he has discovered that "An evening red and morning grey will set the traveller on his way";[267:A] though he seems to have also observed that "If the sun in red should set, the next day surely will be wet." The two statements appear to directly contradict each other. On the other hand we are told that when the reverse happens, "The evening grey and morning red make the shepherd hang his head"; and that "If the sun should set in grey the next will be a rainy day"; the sun setting in a bank of clouds--the west in this country being the direction in which we ordinarily look for wet weather--the result on the morrow will probably be rain. Hence, "A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning, a rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight"; or in Germany, "Regenborgen am Morgen macht dem Schäfer sorgen: Regenborgen am Abend ist dem Schäfer labend." The statement that "The moon is made of green cheese" may be mentioned in passing. Shacklock, in the "Hatchet of Heresies," written in 1565, says, "They may make theyr blinde brotherhode, and the ignorant sort beleeve that the mone is made of grene chese," and many old writers introduce this venerable belief in their plays and other works. We now-a-days associate the idea with age, the green suggesting mouldiness, but the word here means the very opposite, and refers really to a cheese not matured; the moon being new every month, the material of which it was composed never got beyond the green or unripe stage. It is popularly held that "When the wind is in the east 'tis good for neither man nor beast," and a quaint Spanish proverb advises, "Ask no favour during the Solano." This Solano is a wind that blows over from Africa, and is exceedingly hot and dry. It is also known as the sirocco. The moral clearly is that when people are in a state of irritation it is not advisable to lay one's needs before them, the time being inopportune. Many of our weather proverbs are very naturally associated with various saints' days. Thus we get "St Martin's Summer" and "All Saints' Summer" in reference to the bright clear weather that we occasionally get in the late autumn, All Saints' Day being on the first, and St Martin's Day on the eleventh of November. Allusions to both will be found in Shakespeare; thus, in "I. Henry VI."--"Expect St Martin's Summer, halcyon days." The eighteenth of October was in like manner called "St Luke's little Summer." Another old adage was, "If the day of St Paul be clear, then shall betide a happy year"; this day, the festival of the conversion of the saint, was in the calendar ascribed to January the 25th.