"It will rain for forty days straight if it rains on St. Swithin's Day," which, I might as well say for the benefit of those who don't know their saints, falls on July 15th every year. It would be interesting to know how many people in a hundred really believe this, or really believe all the other things that are attributed to the saints,--quite a few, probably. Luckily for St. Swithin July and August are wet months, with often several days of showers or thunderstorms in succession. But never once in Philadelphia has it rained for forty days, one right after another, although half the July 15ths have been rained on. This proverb is one of those that had better never been transplanted from its native Ireland where rain for 40 days would excite scarcely a curse. "Long and loud singing of robins denotes rain." It does not. Oftener than not it denotes the time of day. Just watch the robins and listen to them and see what they do before a storm, during it, after it, and then you will see how little the songs of birds can be depended upon to supplant the barometer. "If March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb," and the other way round. I have seen March come in like a lion and go out like a lion, come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, come in like a lamb and go out like a lion, and come in like a lamb and go out like a Noah's ark. But I never have seen March do anything dependable. It is quite impossible to tell how March is going out on March 27th, and absolutely impossible to tell on March 1st. But there is this much observation expressed in the proverb, that March is so changeable that, if it comes in cold, windy, unsettled, there is not so much chance for such weather still to be going on at the end of the month, and still less in England where the proverb came from. This is a harmless proverb unless it should lead people to actually count upon a pleasant spring just because March had an unpleasant inception. Misfortunes rarely come singly, even on the weather calendar. "When squirrels are scarce in autumn the winter will be severe." Aside from the scientific truth that the animals cannot know in advance about the seasons there is little evidence on either side to base a contention. Nobody has made a squirrel census; nobody, probably, has found out whether they increase in numbers for six years and then die off in great quantities as do the rabbits in the north country on the seventh; nobody has connected their apparent numbers year after year with the actual severities of the winters. And so nobody has a right to promulgate the report (except as a bit of nonsense like April Fool) that the ensuing winter is going to be a record breaker because the squirrels have disappeared. It would be far truer to say that "When squirrels are scarce in autumn the hunters have been busy," and let it go at that.