But it is probable that they serve another and not less important purpose. The country folk, who are generally very weather-wise, and whose sayings always deserve a great deal of attention, because they are very commonly founded both upon observation of facts, and experience, will always assure us that the high flight of swallows in their search after insects is a certain token of fair weather; their low flight of approaching wet. Why is this? Can insects foretell the state of the weather? and if so, by what means? That insects have a meteorometrical power of foretelling the state of the weather, appears beyond a doubt. To select a few instances. Bees, our exemplars in so many points, might be consulted with advantage, and would often give us better information as to whether an over-coat or an umbrella would be probably required, than the not always trustworthy barometer. When engaged in their daily labours, if a change of weather to rain is at hand, although the sun may yet shine and the sky remain clear and calm, they foresee it, and return suddenly to their hives. Hence in weather of an unsettled description they never undertake journeys far from home, but make short excursions to and from their hives, being never absent long at a time; and if we find a bee wandering far from its hive, it may be taken, on the other hand, as a pretty sure prognostic that top-coat and umbrella may be left at home for _that_ day at least. Ants, as we have already noticed, possess the same faculty of weather-wisdom, never allowing their larvæ to be caught in a shower. The abundance of insects in our houses in wet weather, is a familiar observation; we are assured that in hot countries their excessive numbers, during the rainy season, make these little creatures almost as terrible as a plague to all who are within--climbing up the walls, scrambling into the dishes, drowning themselves in the soup-tureens, or putting out the lights with their bodies. In hot and sultry weather, when a black cloud or two in the far horizon give token of a coming storm, insects abound in the air; but as the heavens grow black, they disappear; and before a drop of rain has actually fallen, we may look in vain for them.