copious observations', and from him the following prefatory observations are taken; they are delivered in plain and homely language, but are all of good

sense.

The shepherd, whose sole business it is to observe what has a reference to the flock under his care, who spends all his days and many of his nights in the open air, and under the wide-spread canopy of heaven, is, in a manner, obliged to take particular notice of the alterations of the weather; and when once he comes to take a pleasure in making such observations, it is amazing how great a progress he makes in them, and to how great a certainty at last he arrives, by mere dint of comparing signs and events, and correcting one remark by another. Every thing, in time, becomes to him a sort of weather-gauge. The sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the winds, the mists, the trees, the flowers, the herbs, and almost every animal with which he is acquainted; all these, I say, become, to such a person, instruments of real knowledge.

There are a sort of half-wise people, who, from the consideration of the distances of things, are apt to treat such prognostications, as they phrase them, with much contempt. They can see no connection between a cat's washing her face, and the sky's being overspread with clouds, and therefore they boldly pronounce that the one hath no relation to the other. Yet the same people will readily own, that the fluttering of the flame of a candle is a certain token of wind, which however is not discernible by their feeling; because it lies within the compass of their understanding to discern that this fluctuation of the flame is caused by the wind acting upon it, and therefore they are inclined to believe this, though it

'This useful tract had become very scarce, but has been lately reprinted, and may be had of J. Barker, 19, Great Russell-street, Covent-garden.

does not fall actually under the cognizance of their senses. But a man of a larger compass of knowledge, who is acquainted with the nature and qualities of the air, and knows what an effect any alterations in the weight, the dryness, or the humidity of it has upon all animal bodies, easily perceives the reason why other animals are much sooner sensible of any alterations that happen in that element than men; and therefore to him the cawing of ravens, the chattering of swallows, and a cat's washing her face, are not superstitious signs, but natural tokens (like that of the candle's fluttering) of a change of weather, and as such they have been thought worthy of notice by Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny, and all the wisest and gravest writers of antiquity.

But still a few slight and trivial observations of this kind, and such as are in the power of every man to make, go but a very little way in furnishing us with a useful knowledge of the indications of the weather. To supply these, and to have constantly at hand the means of judging of these alterations, men of great genius have invented (and wonderful inventions they are) instruments for measuring the heat, the cold, the weight, the dryness, and the humidity of the air, with great exactness; and upon these they reason as to the changes of weather with great accuracy and certainty. It would undoubtedly be a great folly to pretend to question either the truth of their observations, or the usefulness of them: but then we may have leave to consider how far and to how great a degree they are useful. The thermometer measures exactly the degrees of heat, but the air must be hot to such or such a degree, before it is discerned by this instrument. The barometer indicates the weight of the air, and the rising and falling of the quicksilver expresses the alterations in its weight with wonderful nicety, but then those alterations are the cause of this. In like manner the hygrometer, or hygroscope, measures the dryness or the

humidity of the air very plainly and very exactly, but the weather must alter, must become dryer or moister than it was, before these alterations are visible: and therefore, however ingenious, however curious, however useful, these instruments may be in other respects, they undoubtedly contribute very little to the prognosticating a change of weather at a distance, and it is from the experience of this that they are so little esteemed, so lightly regarded by the common people.

Our Shepherd's observations are quite of another nature; most of them give us a day's notice, many a week's, and some extend to several months' prognostication of the changes of the weather; and of how great use these may be to all ranks and degrees of people, to the sedentary valetudinarian, as well as the active traveller-to the sportsman who pursues his game, as well as to the industrious husbandman who constantly follows his labour; in short, to every man in every situation, in some degree or other, is so very clear and intelligible, that it would be a mere waste of words, and a very idle display of rhetoric, to attempt the making it clearer. Every man living would be glad to foresee the alterations of the weather if he could; and consequently to most people, if not to all, these observations, grounded on no less than forty years' experience, cannot but be acceptable.'

Rules.

I. If the Sun rise red and fiery, wind and rain. II. If cloudy and it soon decrease, certain fair weather.

III. Clouds small and round, like a dapple-grey

with a north-wind, fair weather for two or three days.

IV. Large clouds like rocks, great showers. V. If small clouds increase, much rain. VI. If large clouds deerease, fair weather. VII. Mists. If they rise in low ground and soon vanish, fair weather.

VIII. If mists rise to the hill-tops, rain in a day or

two.

IX. A general mist before the Sun rises, near the full Moon, fair weather.

X. If mists in the new Moon, rain in the old.
XI. If mists in the old, rain in the new.

XII. Winds. Observe that in eight years' time there is as much south-west wind as north-east, and consequently as many wet years as dry,

XIII. When the wind turns to north-east, and it continues two days without rain, and does not turn south the third day, nor rain the third day, it is likely to continue north-east for eight or nine days, all fair; and then to come to the south again.

XIV. If the wind turns again out of the south to the north-east with rain, and continues in the northeast two days without rain, and neither turns south, nor rains the third day, it is likely to continue northeast for two or three months.

XV. South-west winds. After a northerly wind for the most part two months or more, and then coming south, there are usually three or four fair days at first, and then on the fourth or fifth day comes rain, or else the wind turns north again, and continues dry.

XVI. If the wind returns to the south within a day or two without rain, and turn northward with rain, and return to the south in one or two days before two or three times together, after this sort, then it is likely to be in the south or south-west two or three months together, as it was in the north before.

XVII. Fair weather for a week, with a southern wind, will produce a great drought, if there has been much rain out of the south before. The wind usually turns from north to south, with a quiet wind without rain, but returns to the north with a strong wind and rain; the strongest winds are when it turns from south, to north by west.

XVIII. Clouds. In summer or harvest, when the wind has been south two or three days, and it grows very hot, and you see clouds rise with great white tops like towers, as if one were upon the top of another, and joined together with black on the nether side, there will be thunder and rain suddenly.

XIX. If two such clouds arise, one on either hand, it is time to make haste to shelter.

XX. If you see a cloud rise against the wind or side wind, when that cloud comes up to you, the wind will blow the same way that the cloud came. And the same rule holds of a clear place, when all the sky is equally thick, except one clear edge.

XXI. Sudden rains never last long: but when the air grows thick by degrees, and the Sun, Moon, and Stars shine dimmer and dimmer, then it is likely to rain six hours usually.

XXII. If it begin to rain from the south, with a high wind for two or three hours, and the wind falls, but the rain continues, it is likely to rain twelve hours or more, and does usually rain till a strong north wind clears the air. These long rains seldom hold above twelve hours, or happen above once a year.

XXIII. If it begin to rain an hour or two before sun rising, it is likely to be fair before noon, and so continue that day; but if the rain begin an hour or two after sun rising, it is likely to rain all that day, except the rainbow be seen before it rains.

XXIV. Spring and summer. If the last eighteen days of February and ten days of March be for the most part rainy, then the spring and summer quarters