If the grass should be thickly dotted in the morning with cobwebs of the ground spider, glistening with dew, expect rain. Some say it portends the exact opposite. This puts us in mind of Cato’s quaint saying that “two auguries cannot confront each other without laughing.” If the kettle should boil dry, it is a sure sign of rain. Very earnestly said a certain respectable, middle-aged housewife to me: “Why, sir, sometimes you put twice as much water in the kettle without its boiling away.” If the cattle go under trees when the weather looks threatening, there will be a shower. If they continue feeding, it will probably be a steady downpour. A threatened storm will not begin, or the wind go down, until the turning of the tide to flood. Not only the people living along shore, but all sailors believe this. Closely related to the above is the belief that a sick person will not die until ebb tide. When that goes out, the life goes with it. I have often heard this said in some seaports in Maine. These popular notions, concerning the influence of the tides, be it said, have come down to us from a remote antiquity. The Pythagorean philosopher, indeed, stoutly affirmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was nothing less than the respiration of the world itself, which was supposed to be a living monster, alternately drawing in water, instead of air, and heaving it out again. Again, an old salt, who had perhaps heard of Galileo’s theory, once tried to illustrate to me the movement of the tides by comparing it to that of a man turning over in bed, and dragging the bedclothes with him, his notion being that as the world turned round, the waters of the ocean were acted upon in a like manner. To resume the catalogue:-- A bee was never caught in the rain--that is, if the bee scents rain, it keeps near the hive. If, on the contrary, it flies far, the day will be fair. The ancients believed this industrious little creature possessed of almost human intelligence. When the squirrels lay in a greater store of nuts than usual, expect a cold winter. If the November goose-bone be thick, so will the winter weather be unusually severe. This prediction appears as regularly as the return of the seasons. Many meteors falling presage much snow. “If it rains before seven, It will clear before eleven.” “You can tell before two. What it’s going to do.” There will be as many snow-storms in a winter as there are days remaining in the month after the first fall of snow. Children are told, of the falling snow, that the old woman, up in the sky, is shaking her feather-bed. High tides on the coast of Maine are considered a sign of rain. When the muskrat builds his nest higher than usual, it is a sign of a wet spring, as this means high water in the ponds and streams. “A winter fog Will kill a dog,” which is as much as to say that a thaw, with its usual accompaniments of fog and rain, is invariably productive of much sickness.