LIKE when we listen to our unlettered neighbors, or study the collected folk-lore of any people, it will be seen that animals, both wild and domesticated, enter largely into every community's weather-wisdom; nor can we wonder, considering how every creature we meet, whether in the woods or open fields, is influenced by the condition of the weather prevailing at the time. There is, as many know, a vast difference between a bird's actions, for instance, during a bright May morning and perhaps the next day, when a chilly northeast storm prevails. Here, however, we have a change in the bird, subsequent to an altered condition of the weather, which is quite natural and of little significance, and so our interest centres in the suggestion that centuries ago arose in the minds of men, — Are the animals about us, of whatever grade in the zoological scale, weather-prophets? Do they realize the coming of a storm so far in advance of its actual appearance that, if man could correctly interpret the animal's acts, the creature would be to him a reliable barometer? Certainly, for a long time man has proceeded upon this assumption, and not until the rationality of so doing has been questioned, in the light of biological science, has it occurred to any one that these same animals were a poor dependence. I have in times past maintained that no animal could be held of barometric value. Possibly this was going too far, but my later studies have not led me to a change of base.

An aside here, not to be spoken in a stage-whisper. I have touched upon this subject more than once before, but it bears repeating. It needs a deal of hammering to beat the truth into half the heads you meet. One class, I hold, merit ignoring: those apes that ask a question of a naturalist, and then, assuming an air of wisdom, toss their heads and remark, “Oh, I cannot think so." Of course they cannot. Born without thinking power, and yet refuse to be led; perhaps they deserve pity. The trouble is, such folk are not to be recognized at first sight; but once known, let them be shunned as a pestilence. I am at outs with people whom I have sworn at, but my happiness is not curtailed. As years roll by you free yourself of the dross, and the pure gold of humanity makes life worth living, though you have nothing else than their friendship to call your own.

To return: there are, it would seem, two distinct and not necessarily connected propositions to be considered. First. Do the lower animals recognize, sooner than does man, coming weather changes? Second. How far are we able to interpret a lower animal's acts?

Let us consider these questions separately.

If animals possessed, as is often claimed, meteorological foreknowledge, then it should appear that little suffering and less loss of life should result from sudden changes. But does not even an ordinary thunder-gust drown creeping creatures, maim vigorous birds, and flood the snug galleries of burrowing mammals? It needs but a short ramble in the woods or fields, after such a summer shower, to see how painfully destructive are moderate wind and rain when they rush across the country hand-in-hand. There is no more touching sight in all nature than the lowly-murmured plaint of nesting-birds as they contemplate, after a shower, their ruined home and drowned fledglings. It is not a common occurrence, it is true, but frequent enough to make it an open question whether or not diabolism, in this world, has the upper hand. To credit a bird with weather-wisdom, and yet with no power to guard against probable danger, is to assume that it leads the terrible life of one in constant fear, — a mental condition the bird's daily life flatly contradicts. I lay stress upon birds rather than mammals, because of the two classes of animals the former are much more at the mercy of storms or even vicissitudes of temperature. Of the two, wet feathers are likely to lead to more serious consequences than wet fur. Again, of the two groups, mammals and birds, that have been exposed to persecution by man for centuries, the birds have acquired greater cunning, and we naturally look to them for the more marked evidences of intelligence; and, taking a comprehensive glance at bird-life, it is evident that, while they know, in a general way, what the meteorological conditions are to be, they have as yet failed to provide for the more pronounced features of our weather. The truth is, the one thought uppermost in their minds is that of a food-supply, and concerning all else they trust to luck, and, so trusting, are often victims of their helplessness. If, so long ago as the close of the glacial period, birds began to recognize the fore-runnings of a storm, then evolution, which has not yet failed the world, should have made them weather-prophets by this time; but it has not.

A good barometer gives us abundant warning of coming changes, but what the mercury recognizes is beyond man's ken. Never does the world look brighter than a few hours before some great change. The familiar but senseless term “weather-breeder," applied to an exceptionally clear day, is evidence of this, and certainly animal life has little thought for the future when the skies are without a cloud. Never are birds more merry, mammals more full of play; yet the impending storm means mischief that to some extent might be averted had these happy creatures but an inkling of what was coming.

Were animals in any sense weather-wise, there would be unmistakable evidences of anticipatory preparation; and it is unquestionable that vast numbers of animals are destroyed by storms which might easily have saved themselves by a little foreknowledge. Thus, the feathers of birds often become so soaked as to render flight impracticable, and so the birds fall victims to carnivorous mammals. My attention was called to this fact during the past autumn, when, after a sudden dash of rain, I found a number of warblers that were too wet to fly. Their fluttering did not prevent my catching one, and directly after I saw a redstart in the clutches of a red squirrel. I could not see the captor and captive as plainly as I wished, but still sufficiently distinctly to recognize both the mammal and the bird.

John Burroughs thinks I made a hasty inference in the matter of rain-soaked warblers. He says, “There is no more danger of a well bird being disabled by a storm of rain than there is of a squirrel being disabled. The robin will sometimes get slightly bedraggled, especially about the tail, during a prolonged rain, but never enough to seriously impair its power of flight. Indeed, it is always a surprise to one to see how dry and clean the birds keep during long storms. The swallows will keep on the wing during quite a rain, with plumage apparently as untouched as if they steered between the drops. Both birds and animals seem to wear some charm against wet. I once saw a little meadow-mouse swimming across a lake in the woods. I rowed out and gave him a lift over in my boat, which service, however, he did not need. He was as dry as I was, except upon his extremities."

My friend is all at sea. It was not a matter where any inference could be drawn. The birds were soaked, and that is all there is of it. The hasty inference is to suppose feathers cannot be wetted. I have had the matter in mind all summer, and have seen the same condition due to another cause. Time and again I have studied bathing birds, and put them to their wit's ends too, as they emerged from their baths. Every time I drift by the pebbly shore of the river, if it be not too late in the day, I see many birds sporting in knee-deep water. They dip and splash and pirouette in the daintiest fashion, and this for no other reason than to get wet. As a proof of it, I have startled them when in the water, and their efforts to fly were always painful and sometimes unsuccessful. Again, watching them closely, I found that, on leaving the water, they most vigorously shook themselves, but only after preening their wings was the normal flight-power restored. A most favorable opportunity to study a bathing bird occurred recently. In the yard is a half-barrel, in which is growing a water-lily, the leaves of which nearly cover the upper surface. A red-eyed vireo, that whistles twelve hours a day in the village street for many days, came here to bathe about noon. The water wet its feathers, I am sure. It evidently anticipated this, and seemed prepared for the temporary disablement. It was well aware of being at a disadvantage when wet, and its half-scared chirp, as it beat its way to a low perch, was extremely amusing. This bird more than once dived rather than plunged into the water. The movement was full of grace, the head and shoulders of the bird going quite beneath the surface, but the tail appeared then and at other times to be dry, and invariably was spread slightly when the bird took an upward flight. I had others to watch the bird that my own conclusions might be disputed or verified, but all agreed that bathing for a short time actually wet the feathers, curtailed flight power, and from two to five minutes at least jeopardized the bird's life to a certain extent.

When it is raining, a bird can readily fly any distance and yet keep dry, if it faces the wind, but not otherwise. The pelting rain-drops, striking the bird's feathers the “right way," will roll off as the water rushes over the shingles of a roof. But let us consider a fitful east wind, a driving rain, and birds in a wood. Here there is no possibility of always facing the wind, and the bewildered birds are subjected to not only the rude buffeting of contrary winds, but the ruffling of their feathers coincident with a dash of rain. This it is that disables the weak-winged warblers: their feathers are wet, and they can scarcely fly.

It seems never to have occurred to those people of by-gone years who attributed weather-wisdom to animals that possibly the peculiar act of a mammal or bird, or insect even, and the quickly-following change of weather were mere coincidences; and this is what they are in almost every instance. It matters little what "saying" you select, it needs but a six weeks' drought to demonstrate that rain does not follow any particular action of an animal; and, strangely enough, there appear to be no “sayings" referring to these protracted spells of rainless weather. It is a logical inference, were weather-wisdom reliable, that animal life during a drought should be peculiarly monotonous and undemonstrative, but this is not true.

A drought, however, will cause a change of base, and this is a matter the out-door naturalist should never overlook; for the habits of an animal will not remain essentially the one thing wherever they are. Birds generally love the water. The chicken that delights in a dust-bath walks with evident satisfaction to the pool that it may drink, and in times of a drought the upland fields will be practically deserted and the low meadows overcrowded. At such places, and at such a time, I have heard strange concerts. The spotted sand-pipers and marsh-wrens had not the watery world to themselves, and the birds of the field, in their novel surroundings, were never seemingly out of place. I once saw a hummingbird perched upon a bending spray of wild rice with only a wide waste of waters about it, but it was quite at home; and the house-wrens, that should be nowhere but in an old-time garden, thread the mazes of uprooted trees along the river as if they had never known another and far different home. We think of crows and blackbirds as tenants in common with the farmer, of the cultivated fields, but the former is a devoted beach-rover, and the blackbirds dip down to the water and snatch up floating tidbits so gracefully that we may call them inland gulls.

All this reminds me of an instance of natural history gone mad, but really not more absurd than the average chatter about weather-changes. An old fisherman remarked to me, “It is not so that fish bite better when it rains. They seem to me to go in out of the wet, just as we do, when a shower comes up."