Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/655

 part of the body can ease a painful sensation common to the entire surface. On the other hand, it is certain that flies and other troublesome insects are sensitive to atmospheric changes, even a slight lowering of the temperature, such as no mammal would appreciate; and for an hour or two before a shower, for this reason, they congregate in extraordinary numbers about animals—horses and cows particularly. I have thought that they seek the cows for warmth when the air suddenly cools; and is it not more than probable that the nervousness on the part of the animal, shown by frantic efforts to scratch its ears with its hind-feet and the lashing of its tail, has to do with the excess of irritation caused by innumerable flies, and not with any unusual electrical titillation? If so, the cow's action is still indicative of an approaching change in the weather, and so far may be claimed as a sign of such change, but the connection of the two facts is not such a one as is usually given. It is an indirect, not direct, indication of the prophesied rain-storm. But bearing heavily on the subject is the unquestionable fact that an unusual number of flies often suddenly make their appearance, and torment cattle almost beyond endurance, during the four or six weeks of drought which in summer, early or late, we are so sure to have. In such cases the signs fail. I have asked many a farmer how this could be, and the one reply that I have received in every case is that "there was a shower in the neighborhood." It usually happened, however, that the neighborhood was as parched as we were, and, seeing the signs fail with them, they were covetous of the shower they supposed that we bad had. Perhaps it is with such indications of changes in the weather as it has been said of autumnal proofs of the character of the approaching winter. Miles Overfield once remarked, "When the signs get to failin' 'long in the fall, there'll be no tellin' about the winter."

Of pigs, I have heard it said, very frequently—

 "When swine carry sticks, The clouds will play tricks";

but that—

 "When they lie in the mud, No fears of a flood."

The first of these couplets is of twofold interest. I have watched them for years, to see what purport this carrying of sticks and bunches of grass might have, and have only learned that it has nothing whatever to do with the weather, or at least with coming rain-storms. The drought of summer is so far a convenience as to throw light upon this habit, as it did upon the uneasy cows. Pigs carry sticks as frequently then as during wet weather, or just preceding a shower. Furthermore, these gathered twigs are not brought together as though to make a nest, but are scattered about in a perfectly aimless manner. For some cause, the animal is uneasy, and takes this curious method of relieving itself. The probabilities are that it is a survival of some