OMENS AND FALLACI

Evening Star, Issue 17333, 22 April 1920, Page 6

OMENS AND FALLACI

BIRDS AND WEATHER, PROPHETS. _ Anxiety is well known to be the mothei of superstition, and in these days of coal shortage (writes a correspondent in the London 'Times') wa are all more than usually interested in the question ol whether the coming winter is going to he a severe one or not. Therefore we look to the country folk, who are notoriously weather-wise, for a hint as to how far we may, with safety, have a decent fire to breakfast by, and how far such rash profusion may point to the tragedy of 'La Cigale.' And the countryman of tho old-fashioned breed has no doubts. It is an article of faith with many that a plentiful crop of berries foretells a severe winter. They picture Providence as a beneficent Food Controller, who, like Joseph in Egypt, accumulates reserves of provisions for the birds against a coming famine, and eo foretell the future bv a sort of rhabdomancv. Should this fkith justified, the outlook for coalless mortals is dismal indeed. There has seldom been such a harvest of the hedgerows. The holly trees are loaded with Berries, orange-colored now, but rapidly reddening for Christmas. Hips and haws, acorna and hazel nuts are all plentiful, and tha churchyard yew tree is gemmed to the tips of its twigs with the coral-pink mucilaginous fruits that thrushes and misselthrushes love eo well. As to elderberries, their_ abundance makes the price arid scarcity of port wine quite inexplicable. So tha countryman points to all this wealth of fruitage, and shakes his head and looks to the wood pile. With tradition to back him, he is impervious to argument, and prophesies frost and snow from the berries with the same assurance as he always connects changes of tho weather with changes of the moon, regardless of modern meteorologists, who declare that the moon has no more influence on the weather than the man in it. As a matter of fact, the harvest of berries belongs to the province of Epimetheua rather thar that of Prometheus. It is a result of past weather, and has no reference to the future.

Thera is, however, another form 6i augury that, besides being of immemorial antiquity, has niado claims upon the attention of present-day weather prophets. The movements of birds are so peculiar in themselves and so generally noticeable that every field naturalist is tempted to pose as something of an augur. Matthew Arnold asserted of birds :—■

Proof they give, too, primal powers, Of a prescience more than ours, Teach us, while they come and go, "When to sail and when to sow, and belief in this superhuman prescient* 13 very .widely held. In certain respects it is justified, for nothing is more inexplicable than the way in which news of a plentiful food supply in some particular locality travels through the bird world. Thus a plague of voles is commonlv followed by an immense local increase in the number of owls, especially of the shortcared owls, who are foreigners, and only occasionally nest in this country. In the same way a plentiful crop of beechmast, draws, like a magnet, great flocks of bramblings;—those elegant finches who seldom breed below latitude 60deg N., and ara so curiotisly irregular in th&ir visitations. How knowledge of this tort is acquired by birds it is impossible to say, but undoubtedly they have soma means of discovering any particularly rich feeding-ground. Arguing from nnalO2V, it would seem not impossible to foretell the severity or otherwise of the coming winter from the arrival of those birds who come to us from tho colder climates nf the north. Indeed, it would seem likely that, moving 33 they do just in front of the severe weather, we might reasonably gather some warnings of tho future from the datea of their arrival. If that be the case, the omens look dark for an early winter. Even in the West of England redwings ara reported at the end of September, and bramblings and Hocks of red-polls made their appearance at the very beginning of October. These dates are earlier than usual, but the augur will be well-advised if he gives his oraclet with something of the Delphic ambiguity. There are many factors to be taken into account. Hard weather in the .north may have started tho birds off on their journey and yet be slow in following them, or a favorable breeding season may have shortened the period of nesting and .allowed the other great instinct of migntiwi to come earlier into play. There are even somo grounds for thinking that our summer migrants show a tendency to abbreviate their stay in this country, and the same tendency may be working farther north. One particular colony of housemartens, that has been carefully watched for some years, ha-s been leaving regularly a little earlier every season. In 1914 the date was October 6. This year all the nests were deserted on September 16. just a day or two earlier than last autumn. Caution is therefore recommended to ornithological disciples of Old Moore and Zadkiel.

Indeed, in all cases, the trade of weather prophet would be a precarious one did not an occasional success cancel a host of forgotten failures, for the real truth is that about a week ahead is the very limit within which anyone can foretell the weather. Those, fiowevenf whose faith in the wisdom of the ancients is still undimmed will be well advised to conserve their fuel with the utmost particularity, for all the traditional signs of an early and severe winter are with 113.- In any case they will be no losers, for their coal reserve is sure to be useful before the first swallow announces that tho hounds of spring are on-winter's traces.