foundation, respecting the wholesomeness of goats' milk, hitherto believed to be, in many respects, superior even to that of the cow. The goat was much venerated by the ancient Egyptians, and never sacrificed, because Pan was represented with the legs and feet of that animal; but the Greeks destroyed it on account of its cropping the vines.

Few animals have been the cause, perhaps, of so many superstitions as the common do. mestic cat; most of them are too well known to require repetition here, but the still prevalent popular prejudice that this creature sucks the breath of sleepers, especially children, and thereby kills them, has been signally refuted by modern naturalists, who observe that, even if it were capable of drawing a person's breath thus, the construction of its mouth renders it impossible to impede the respiration of the slumberer through mouth and nostrils at the same time; this vulgar superstition probably arose from cats liking to lie warm, and nestling consequently in beds, cribs, and cradles. To dream of cats is considered unlucky, denoting treachery and quarrels on the part of friends. Cats, from no apparent cause, seeming shy, agitated, and traversing the house uttering cries, as if alarmed, is believed to forbode sudden and causeless strife between the members of the families with whom they reside. That the breath of these animals is poisonous, that they can play with serpents and remain uninjured, whilst their fur communicates the infection of the venom of those reptiles, that they lend themselves readily to infernal agents and purposes, that certain portions of their bodies possess magical properties and were efficacious in the preparation of charmed potions, and that they are partly supernatural creatures, endowed with a power of bringing good or evil fortune upon their possessors, with other facts just as credible, was once devoutly believed by the illiterate, as it is partially at this very day.

Dogs are generally supposed to possess the faculty of beholding spirits when they are invisible to mortals, and of foretelling death by lamentable howls. It is lucky to be followed by a strange dog. The Welsh believe in the apparition of certain spirits under the form of hunting dogs, which they call dogs of the sky (cwn wybir, or cwn aunwy); they indicate the death of a relation or friend of the person to whom they appear, but, though generally accompanied by fire, are innocuous, The tradition of the spectre hound of Peel Castle (Isle of Man), or Manthe doog, is well known. The religious superstition of Mahommedans leads them to consider the dog as an unclean animal; but the dog of the Seven Sleepers, according to a tale in the Koran, is, say the faithful, the only animal admitted into heaven. A more sweet and soothing creed is held by " the untutored Indian," who believes that the faithful compa

nion of his laborious mortal career will accom. pany him into the everlasting regions; aud, indeed, the idea that animals possess actually an inferior soul, and that, maltreated as they are on earth, they too have their appropriate heaven, has by many been considered a speculation less superstitious than truly philosophical.

The miraculous circumstance of Balaam's ass being empowered to behold that startling apparition which his rider's eyes were holden so that he could not see, may have originated the superstition that animals behold spirits when they are invisible to man. Horses, from frequently starting at no apparent cause, have thus been placed amongst the seers. In the Highlands it is deemed lucky to meet a horse; but, according to Virgil, the sight of one of these animals was ominous of war, the reason for which may be found in a horse being as a martial animal dedicated to the god of war. The Persians, Armenians, and other ancient nations sacrificed horses to the sun. Tacitus says the Suevi maintained white horses in the several woods at the public charge to draw omens from them; and there are to this day vestiges in England of some superstition relative to white horses, and of supposed Danish origin.

The hyæna has been the subject of strange fables: its neck was supposed to be jointless, consisting but of one bone, and considered of great efficacy in magical preparations; and the Arabs to this day, when they kill this fierce animal, bury its head, lest it should be made the element of some charm against them. It was believed to possess the power of changing its sex annually; to be able to fascinate shepherds by its eyes and render them motionless; and its cognomen, "laughing,” is, of course, derived from the idea of its being able to imitate the human voice.

The ancients believed that if a man encountered a wolf, and the animal first fixed its eyes upon him, he was deprived for ever of the power of speech: connected with these ferocious brutes is the fearful superstition of the lycanthropos, were-wulf, loup-garou, or man-wolf. "These were-wolves," says Verstegan, " are certain sorcerers who, having anointed their bodies with an ointment they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certain enchanted girdle, do not only unto the view of others seem as wolves. but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves so long as they wear the said girdle; and they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying, and killing, and waste of human creatures The Germans had a similar superstition regarding wolves, and the same respecting the wild boar; and with these let us compare the British belief, that warlocks and weird women possess the power of transforming themselves into hares, cats, &c.

Swine, which are strangely uneasy in or against tempestuous weather, are believed to see the wind. In some parts of Great Britain it is a popular belief that, on commencing a journey, if a sow and pigs be met it will prove successful; but if a sow only crosses the road, the traveller, if he cannot pass, must ride round about it, otherwise ill luck will attend him.

The fore foot of a hare, worn constantly in the pocket, is esteemed by certain worthy old dames as a sure preventive of rheumatic disorders.

The lynx was believed by the ancients, from the acuteness of its sight, to have the power of seeing through stone walls; and amongst other absurdities then gravely maintained were these:-that the elephant had no joints, and being unable to lie down, was obliged to sleep leaning against a tree; that deer lived several hundred years; that the badger had the legs of one side shorter than those of the other; that the chameleon lived entirely on air, and the salamander in fire; whilst the sphynx, satyr, unicorn, centaur, hypogriff, hydra, dragon, griffin, cockatrice, &c. &c. &c., were either the creations of fancy, or fabled accounts of creatures of whose real form, origin, nature, and qualities, but the most imperfect knowledge was afloat.

The flesh of the rhinoceros, and almost every part of its body, is reckoned by the ignorant natives of countries where it is found an antidote against poison.

That the jackal is the "lion's provider," entirely, is an erroneous idea; but it is true that the terrific cry of this animal, when in chase, rouses the lion, whose ear is dull, and enables him to join in the pursuit of prey. Many stories are told respecting the generosity of the lion; and it was once confidently believed that no stress of hunger would induce him to devour a virgin,* though his imperial appetite might satiate itself on men and matrons. The title of King of the Beasts, given at a period when strength and ferocity were deemed the prime qualities of man, is now more justly considered to belong to the mild, majestic, and almost rational elephant. The white elephant is a sacred animal with the Siamese, and the cow with the Bramins and Hindoos.

The bear was believed never to devour a man whom it found dead; and it was imagined to lick its cubs into proper shape: hence the expression, "unlicked cub," applied to a raw, awkward, unpolished youth. The saliva of the llama, which when angry it ejects, has been erroneously supposed to possess a corrosive quality.

The hoof of the moose-deer was formerly in great repute for curing epilepsies, but has now justly fallen into neglect. The Laplander,

• "Tis said the lion will turn and flee

From a maid in the pride of her purity.-BYRON.

commencing his journey, whispers into the ear of the rein-deer, believing these animals understand and will obey his oral directions. The elk is accounted by the Indians an animal of good omen, and often to dream of him indicates a long life. They imagine also the existence of a gigantic elk, which walks without difficulty in eight feet of snow, has an arm growing from its shoulder which it uses as we do, is invulnerable to all weapons, is king of the elks, and attended by a numerous herd of courtiers. The fur of the glutton is so valued by the Kamtschatdales that they say celestial beings are clad in no other.

It was long a popular error that the porcupine, when irritated, discharged its quills at its adversary; that these quills were poisonous, and rendered wounds inflicted by them difficult to cure: a better acquaintance with the natural history of this harmless animal has now exploded these fables. Our British porcupine, the innocuous hedgehog, has long been the object of unceasing persecution, from the popular belief that it bites and sucks the udders of cows, an absurdity sufficiently contradicted by the smallness of its mouth. In like manner, the goatsucker is a persecuted bird, since, as its name implies, it has been thought to suck the teats of goats and other animals: whereas the form of its bill entirely precludes such an act, and it is an inoffensive bird, living upon insects. The superstition has probably originated from its being often found in warm climates under cattle, capturing the insects that torment them. It is supposed, in some places, that the shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature that whenever it creeps over a beast, cow, sheep, or horse (in particular), the animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of its limb. A shrew-ash was the remedy for this misfortune, viz. an ash whose twigs or branches gently applied to the affected members relieved the pain: our provident forefathers, anticipating such an accident to their cattle, always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, once medicated, retained its virtue for ever: it was thus prepared into the body of an ash a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse being thrust into it, the orifice was plugged up, probably with quaint incantations now forgotten.

:

The toad, owing to its hideous, disgusting appearance, has been the subject of many superstitions: it is commonly thought to spit venom, whilst, as yet, the question is unsettled, whether or not it be poisonous in any respect; some affirm that a viscous humour of poisonous quality exudes from the skin, like perspiration; whilst others pretend that cancers may be cured by the application of living toads to them; and a man has been known to swallow one of these abominations for a wager, taking care, however, to follow

this horrid meal by an immediate and copious draught of oil. But the very glance of the toad has been supposed fatal; of its entrails fancied poisonous potions have been concocted; and for magical purposes it was believed extremely efficacious; a precious stone was asserted to be found in its head, invaluable in medicine and magic. In Carthagena and Portobello (America) these creatures swarm to such a degree in wet weather that many of the inhabitants believe every drop of rain to be converted into a toad. It is said of the Pipa, or Surinam toad, a hideous, but probably harmless, animal, that very malignant effects are experienced from it when

calcined.

The crocodile is feigned to weep and groan like a human being in pain and distress, in order to excite the sympathy of man, and thus allure him into his tremendous jaws.

The lizard, though now declared by naturalists to be perfectly harmless, was long considered poisonous by the ignorant; and, in Sweden and Kamtschatka, the green lizard is the subject of strange superstitions, and regarded with horror. Newts, efts, swifts, snakes, and blindworms are, in popular credence, all venomous; and that the ear-wig most justly derives its name from entering people's ears, and either causing deafness, or, by penetrating to the brain, death itself, is with many considered an indisputable fact. The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are believed; they term it the coffincutter, and it has some connexion with the grave and purgatory, not now, unfortunately, to be recalled to our memory.

It is, in Germany, a popular belief that the stag-beetle (perhaps the same insect) carries burning coals into houses by means of its jaws, and that it has thus occasioned many dreadful fires. The death-watch superstition is too well-known to need particular notice. It is singular that the house-cricket should by some persons be considered an unlucky, by others, a lucky, inmate of the mansion: those who hold the latter opinion consider its destruction the means of bringing misfortune on their habitations. "In Dum fries-shire," says Sir William Jardine, "it is a common superstition that if crickets forsake a house which they have long inhabited, some evil will befall the family; generally the death of some member is portended. In like manner the presence or return of this cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the family.

The following curious notice of the Acherontia Atropos, or death's-head moth, we extract from the Journal of a Naturalist :"The yellow and brown-tailed moths," he observes," the death-watch, our snails, and many other insects, have all been the subjects of man's fears, but the dread excited in England by the appearance, noises, or increase of

insects, are petty apprehensions compared with the horror that the presence of this acherontia occasions to some of the more fanciful and superstitious natives of northern Europe, maintainers of the wildest conceptions. A letter is now before me from a correspondent in German Poland, where this insect is a common creature, and so abounded in 1824, that my informant collected fifty of them in a potato-field of his village, where they call them the death's-head phantom,' the "wandering death-bird,' &c. The markings on the back represent to their fertile imaginations the head of a perfect skeleton, with the limb bones crossed beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; it is regarded, not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device of evil spirits-spirits, enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is supposed to represent the fiery element whence it is thought to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in an evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, famine, and death to man and beast. This insect has been thought to be peculiarly gifted in having a voice and squeaking like a mouse when handled or disturbed; but, in truth, no insect that we know of has the requisite organs to produce a genuine voice; they emit sounds by other means, probably all external."

The Icelanders believe seals to be the offspring of Pharaoh and his host; who, they assert, were changed into these animals when overwhelmed in the Red Sea. The grampus, porpoise, and dolphin have each from the earliest ages been the subject of numerous superstitions and fables, particularly the latter, which was believed to have a great attachment to the human race, and to succour them in accidents by sea; it is a perfectly straight fish, yet even painters have promulgated a falsity respecting it, by representing it from the curved form in which it appears above water, bent like the letter S reversed. "The inhabitants of Pesquare," says Dr. Belon, "and of the borders of Lake Gourd, are firmly persuaded that the carp of those lakes are nourished with pure gold; and a great portion of the people in the Lyonnois are fully satisfied that the fish called humble and ernblons eat no other food than gold. There is not a peasant in the environs of the Lake of Bourgil who will not maintain that the laurets, a fish sold daily in Lyons, feed on pure gold alone. The same is the belief of the people of the Lake Paladron in Savoy, and of those near Lodi. But," adds the Doctor, "having carefully examined the stomachs of these several fishes, I have found that they lived on other substances, and that from the anatomy of the stomach it is impossible that they should be able to digest gold." This

able, therefore, with that of the chameleon ving on air only, and some others which we hall have occasion to mention, may be regarded amongst those exploded by science.

The fable of the kraken has been referred to imperfect and exaggerated accounts of monstrous polypi infesting the northern seas; now far may not the cuttle fish have given rise to this fiction? In hot countries cuttlefish are found of gigantic dimensions: the Indians affirm that some have been seen two fathoms broad over their centre; and each arm (for this kind is the eight-armed cuttle fish) nine fathoms long! Lest these animals should fling their arms over the Indians' light canoes, and draw them and their owners into the sea, they fail not to be provided with an axe to chop them off.

The ancients believed that the oil of the grayling obliterated freckles and small-pox marks. The adhesive qualities of the remora, or sucking-fish, and its habit of darting against and fixing itself to the side of a vessel, caused the ancients to believe that the possessors of it had the power of arresting the progress of a ship in full sail.

Some Catholics, in consequence of the John Doree having a dark spot, like a fingermark, on each side of the head, believe this to have been the fish, and not the haddock, from which the Apostle Peter took the tribute money, by order of our Saviour. The modern Greeks denominate it" the fish of St. Christopher," from a legend which relates that it was trodden on by that saint, when he bore his divine burden across an arm of the sea. Some species of echini, fossilized, and seen frequently in Norfolk, are termed by the ignorant peasantry, and considered, fairy loaves, to take which, when found, is highly unlucky.

The amphisbæna, from its faculty of moying backwards or forwards at pleasure, has been thought to have a head at either extremity of its reptile body, but close inspection proves this opinion false. The fascinating power of the rattlesnake, of which so many stories have in times past been related, and which was asserted to exist in its glittering eyes, has been of late years resolved into that extreme nervous terror of its victim (at sight of so certain a foe) which deprives it of the power of motion, and causes it to fall an unresisting prey into the reptile's jaws. We may here pause to observe, en passant, that the antipathy which people of all ages and nations have felt against every reptile of the serpent tribe, from the harmless worm to the hosts of deadly" dragons" which infest the torrid zone, and the popular opinion that all are venomous, often in spite of experience, seems to be not so much superstition, as a terror of the species, implanted, since the fall, in our bosoms, by the same Divine Being

who at that period pronounced the serpent to be the most accursed beast of the field.

The oriental fable of the roc has its probable origin in the condor, which is undoubt edly the largest and strongest bird of the vulture tribe in existence, and extremely ravenous. Minerva's bird, the owl, is well known as one of ill omen; besides the superstitious idea that the screech-owl foretells death by its cry, it was formerly believed to suck the blood of children. The Mongol and Calmuc Tartars have held the white owl sacred since the days of Genghis Khan, when a bird of this species having settled on a bush in which that prince had hidden himself from his enemies, those who pursued him passed it, not believing that a bird would perch on a bush wherein a man was concealed. The raven has ever been considered by the vulgar as a bird of evil omen, the indicator of misfortunes and death; and, indeed, the superstition is but consonant with a bird of such funereal note and hue, and exhibiting such goule-like propensities. The Swedes, however, regard it as sacred, and no one offers to molest it. In the north of England, one magpie flying alone is deemed an ill omen; two together a fortunate one; three forebode a funeral, and four a wedding; or, when on a journey, to meet two magpies portends a wedding; three, a successful jour ney; four, unexpected good news; and five, that the person will soon be in company with the great. To kill a magpie, indicates or brings down some terrible misfortune. The sparrow-hawk was sacred with the Egyptians, and the symbol of Osiris. The yellow-hammer is superstitiously considered an agent in diablerie. The wheat-ear is, in the Highlands, a detested bird, and fancied one of evil omen, on account of its frequenting old churchyards, where it nestles amongst the stones, and finds plenty of insects for food. The woodcock is, we believe, the bird imagined to drop, in its proper season, from the moon. It is a vulgar error that the song of the nightingale is melancholy, and that it only sings by night; but to hear the cuckoo before the nightingale has been long deemed an unsuccessful omen in love: the saliva of the cuckoo has been thought to preserve all it falls upon.

"The robin and the wren

Are God Almighty's cock and hen." says the old distich, and whilst it is reckoned wicked to kill either of these (not but that there is an ancient custom of "hunting the wren" still kept up, we believe, in some parts of this country), it is considered unlucky to kill a swallow, or house-martin. The kingfisher is the halcyon of the ancients, who imagined that during the process of incubation by the female the sea remained unvexed by storms;-hence "halcyon days." The feathers of this bird are employed by the

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Tartars for many superstitious purposes; they consider them amulets of priceless value, enabling them to inspire women with love. In more civilized countries it was once believed, that, if the body of a kingfisher were suspended by a thread, some magnetic influence would turn its breast to the north: others thought it a preserver of woollen cloths from moths. The albatross (by some considered the kingfisher or halcyon) is fabled to sleep in the air, never to touch the earth; and to kill one is reckoned supremely unlucky. There is an Indian bird, the name of which has unfortunately escaped us, that is feigned to live only on the rain-drops which it can draw with its bill from the clouds; in a dry season, therefore, this bird perishes. Of the bird of paradise the following wonders were once credited: viz., that the egg was laid in the air by the female, and there hatched by the male in an orifice of his body; that it had no legs (these, however, are long, and a disfigurement to the body, which the Indians know, and, fearful of their depreciating the value of the bird, upon capturing it, cut them off'); that it hung itself by the two long feathers of its tail on a tree when sleeping; that it never touched the ground during any period of its existence, and fed wholly on dew. The Indians also believe that the leader, or king of the birds of paradise, is black, with red spots, and that he soars far away from the rest of the flock-which, however, never quit him, but settle where he does. The gigantic crane is believed by the Indians to be invulnerable, and animated by the souls of deceased Brahmins; the Africans hold it in equal veneration. Whence arises the classical fable that swans sing their own dirge just previous to death, and expire singing it? The wild swan certainly may be said to whistle, but the tame has no other note than a hiss, and this only when provoked. Kamtschatdales and Kuriles wear round their necks the bills of puffins, as an amulet which insures good fortune. Who was Mother Carey?-The wife, perhaps, of "Davy," and keeper of his "locker." Mother Carey's chickens is the well-known appellation, in tarrish tongue, of stormy petrels, not superstitiously supposed to forebode tempests, since they seem their very element; but it is probable that to Mother Carey herself (we crave her pardon- Mistress) some astounding yarn" is attached. The stork, the crane. and the pelican, are each the subject

The

of idle stories: the latter has been asserted to feed her young with her own bosom's blood, and to fill her pouch with water in order to supply them in the desert. A notion is entertained by the ignorant that the bittern thrusts its bill into a reed, which serves as a pipe to increase the volume of its natural note, and swell it above pitch; and in some places a tradition prevails that it thrusts its head into water and then blows with all its might. It is erroneous that the ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, depending solely on the sun's rays to hatch them; the truth is, that, as from the heat of her native climate it is not always necessary for her to sit upon them, she simply does what numerous birds in colder latitudes are well known to do-viz., cover them, that they may not, during her absence, lose their heat.

The popular opinion that the turtle dove, of either sex, should it happen to lose its mate, remains ever after in a state of disconsolate celibacy, is, we believe, disproved by the fact, at least as respects these birds in a wild state; but we may remark, that the loss of a companion to more than one kind of domesticated bird, if it has been brought up with one, even though not in the same cage, is sometimes so severely deplored by the survivor, as to occasion its death, if the loss be not speedily supplied. The old story of swallows passing the winter in a state of torpidity at the bottom of rivers, lakes, and ponds, has been frequently agitated, asserted to be a fact by one party, and totally disproved by the other. The reader may be amused to learn that very recently we were assured by one, who knew it for an absolute fact, that ducks and even chickens (!) had been found in a certain farmer's pond, laid up in winter quarters, which were revived by the warmth of the sun and upper air, upon being fished out of it! 66 Regarding birds' eggs," says the Naturalist in his interesting Journal, "we have a very foolish superstition here (Gloucestershire): the boys may take them unrestrained, but their mothers so dislike their being kept in the house, that they usually break them; their presence may be tolerated for a few days, but by the ensuing Sunday they are frequently destroyed, under the idea that they bring bad luck, or prevent the coming of good fortune, as if in some way offensive to the domestic deity of the hearth.”— MIRROR, vol. xix.