The closeness between countless generations of humans and the natural world is expressed in the many sayings that relate to plants and animals – and to the weather. In times past, extraordinary weather phenomena were attributed to the whims of deities, and weather perfectly suited to the needs of farmers and fishermen was a sign of the gods’ good grace.
Long before Admiral Robert Fitzroy, Superintendent of Britain’s Meteorological Office, coined the phrase “weather forecast” in August 1861, farmers, sailors and country folk had been looking skyward to foretell the weather. The Greeks started the science of meteorology, relating day-to-day weather to the direction of the wind. The first rules of weather forecasting are enshrined in On Weather Signs written in the 4th century BC by Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus.
That many (though by no means all) of the sayings about the natural world still hold true today is testament to our ancestors’ powers of observation. That so many relate to Christian festivals and rites of passage such as marriage and death also underlines the strong links between our lives and the natural round.
RING ROUND THE MOON, SNOW SOON
In winter, it may quite possibly be so. Or the ring could be a sign that rain is on the way, depending on how cold it is.
On a winter’s night a pale ring or halo around the moon – shimmering with faint rainbow colors, with the red on the inside – is a magnificent sight, often more spectacular because many of the stars are blotted out by cloud. Sometimes it lasts for only a few minutes, but if it persists for longer you may see the different colors strengthen and fade as the ice crystals move about, turning and swirling in the cloud.
Halos form around the sun in exactly the same way as those around the moon, but it is dangerous to look at them directly. They, too, are good predictors of rain.
Comprising the moon’s halo are millions of minute, hexagonal ice crystals, often borne on moisture-laden cirrostratus cloud. In its infancy, this cloud is thin and high enough – about 22,000 feet (6,000 m) above the ground – to be penetrated by the sun’s rays illuminating the moon from below the horizon. We see a halo because each of the ice crystals bends the sun’s light twice. If the cloud then thickens and lowers, snow or rain will almost certainly fall. If the cloud disperses then it won’t.
Just to confuse, there is another phenomenon, the corona, which invariably includes a brownish ring, with bluish-white colors towards the inside. If red is there at all it will be to the outside, not the inside. However this does not constitute a weather prediction.
Shepherds and sailors have long believed that a new moon on a Saturday or a full one on a Sunday foretell bad weather. The combination occurring in succession is considered to be the worst of both worlds.
WHEN SWALLOWS FLY LOW, RAIN IS ON THE WAY
Although swallows rarely fly very high in the sky, these graceful birds have been used as weather predictors since ancient times.
The Roman poet Virgil was one of the earliest recorders of typical swallow behavior:
Wet weather seldom hurts the most unwise;
So plain the signs, such prophets are the skies’
The swallow skims the river’s watery face;
The frogs renew the croaks of their loquacious race.
On a fine day, as they hunt for flying insects, which they scoop up into their wide, deep bills, swallows will alternately glide high in the air to catch groups of weak prey, drawn up from the ground by warm air currents, and swoop down lower over open ground or water where large insects abound. But when the air pressure falls and the air is full of moisture (whether or not it is going to rain) insects descend much closer to the ground, and therefore so do the swallows that pursue them.
When it’s wet and windy, insects go to ground or stay lodged in vegetation or in the lee of a hedge or wall. Then the swallows have to travel farther from their nests – to places such as rivers or sewage farms – and will sometimes pick insects off tree leaves or even forage for food on the ground. Near the coast swallows will feed low on sandhoppers and flies.
To have swallows or house martins nesting in your eaves is a sign of both luck and wealth. But to rob a swallow’s nest is so bad that, say the traditional pessimists, it will taint cows’ milk with blood.
WHEN GORSE IS OUT OF BLOOM, KISSING’S OUT OF FASHION
This English country saying acknowledges the fact that gorse can be seen in flower throughout the year – it may also refer to the prevalence of gorse in lovers’ traditional meeting places.
The botanical key to this saying is that, in England and Wales, different species of gorse – all with bright yellow pea-like flowers and a wonderfully heady scent – grow close together. In a mild year the common gorse (Ulex europaeus) flowers from late winter to mid summer. After it has finished blooming, two rarer species come into flower for the rest of the year: the western gorse (U. gallii), which grows on acid, western moors, and in the south and east of England, the dwarf or lesser gorse (U. minor).
It is said that Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who devised the system of plant classification, fell to his knees in wonder when he first saw gorse in bloom. The location was probably Putney Heath, near London; the year, 1736. Through history, gorse has had many domestic uses, from fuel to cattle fodder, and for sweeping.
KISSING FACTS
The American confectioner Hershey has been selling chocolate “kisses” since 1902.
A gambler will kiss the dice for good luck before a throw.
A kiss conveys the winner’s joy on receiving a coveted trophy.
A kiss on the fingers, accompanied by an extravagant hand gesture, says “goodbye.”
ANIMALS CAN PREDICT EARTHQUAKES
Earthquakes strike with a suddenness unpredictable to human senses, but some observers are convinced that animals change their behavior before disaster strikes.
A few days before the earthquake that shook Haicheng in China in 1975, cows, horses and other mammals began to get restless. Chickens were reluctant to return to their roosts, birds took flight and there were reports of “dazed” rats and snakes that seemed to be frozen to the ground. An evacuation was ordered and many lives saved. Ahead of the disastrous tsunami in December 2004, animals including elephants and monkeys were observed moving to high ground.
Many animals have senses well beyond the range of humans. Insects can see ultraviolet light, bats detect ultrasound and some fish can sense electric fields.
Animals, it seems, are able to sense and respond to the small tremors of foreshocks that occur before the cataclysm. To accomplish this they are probably using their organs of hearing and balance (combined in the ear in mammals). They may also be responding, with their organs of smell, to the presence of gases such as methane released from below the earth’s surface just prior to an earthquake.
What makes animals less reliable predictors is that in many earthquakes there are no foreshocks. Equally, seismologists know where earthquakes are likely to occur – at the “faults” between the earth’s tectonic plates, which constantly slide past each other – but not when.
Small earthquakes constantly rumble around locations such as Moodus, Connecticut. The Wangunk long ago chose this place for their powwows, because it is where the earth seemed to speak to them.
CATS WILL ALWAYS FIND THEIR WAY HOME
There is plenty of proof that this is true, and some cats have journeys of thousands of miles on record. But it is an old wives’ tale that putting butter on a cat’s paws will stop it wandering away after a house move.
In 1981, records The Guinness Book of Oddities, a Turk named Mehmet Tunc was on a journey from Germany with his cat Minosch. At the Turkish border the cat disappeared, only to turn up 61 days later 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away at the Tunc family home. Another cat, named Sugar, who was hampered by a deformed hip, even crossed the Rockies, at the rate of 100 miles (160 km) a month, to be reunited with her owners who had moved from Anderson, California, to Gage, Oklahoma. And in 2011, after her family moved house, a tabby named Jessie traveled over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) across Australia to her previous home.
Cats find their way, it is thought, by using the sun as both a compass and a clock. Like migratory birds they may also be able to detect subtle changes in the earth’s magnetic field. Nearer to home, they use their sense of smell, which, as in humans, has a strong link to the memory.
Wherever they live, cats establish a home territory for themselves in which smell memories are crucial. If this overlaps with the territory of a neighboring cat, animals will commonly avoid each other by using different paths or by going outdoors at different times of the day or night.
Except for identical twins who, because our personal odors are inherited, share exactly the same smell, molecule for molecule, dogs can easily detect the difference between individuals. The record breakers are bloodhounds, which have been known to follow trails several days old, or stretching 100 miles (160 km) and more.
Dogs have a sense of smell vastly superior to that of humans. This has much to do with the size and composition of their olfactory epithelium, the sheet of tissue at the top of the nasal cavity that is sensitive to aromas. This is 20 times bigger in dogs than it is in humans and is supplied with more than a hundred times as many smell-sensitive cells.
Dogs are particularly good at detecting the substances that comprise human sweat, notably butyric acid, and it is this that makes them so good at finding the buried victims of avalanches and earthquakes. This is proved in the pebble test. Six people pick up a pebble and throw it as far as they can. The dog then sniffs the hand of one person and will successfully retrieve the pebble thrown by them.
In the wild, dogs use smell as a vital means of finding food located a long way off, for enhancing the strength of the pack and for finding a mate. The reason why dogs occasionally roll in cow or horse dung may be to disguise their smell from rabbits and other potential live food. It may also be a signal for members of the pack to gather round before a hunt.
Dog days, the period between July 3 and August 11, get their name from the Romans’ belief that the heat of high summer, which they called caniculares dies, was caused by the Dog Star Sirius rising with the sun.
COWS LIE DOWN WHEN IT’S GOING TO RAIN
They do – and they don’t! In other words they are poor weather forecasters, although some farmers claim that cows predict storms by exhibiting bad-tempered behavior. Cows with any sense will take shelter from a downpour by standing or lying down under nearby trees.
The truth about cow behavior is that, rain or shine, they generally stand up to eat in the morning and evening, and lie down for anything up to 12 hours to chew the cud during the rest of the day or night. Being herd animals, what one does, all (or most) do, so when you pass a field of cows you are very likely to see them all eating or all chewing.
According to country lore, if a cow trespasses into your garden, expect a death in the family.
Cattle chew the cud to get maximum benefit from hard-to-digest grass. A cow’s stomach has four compartments, which are used in a specific order. Ingested grass enters the large first stomach, where it is softened and overflows into the smaller second stomach. From both first and second stomachs food is regurgitated in small portions and ruminated. It is then swallowed into the third stomach and finally into the fourth or “true” stomach.
ANIMAL RAIN LORE
Many other animal behaviors are erroneously used to forecast rain. So, don’t bank on rain if:
A pigeon washes.
A sparrow chirps.
A cat washes over its ears.
A robin comes close to the house.
A chicken rolls in the dust.
OAK BEFORE ASH, ONLY A SPLASH...
“Ash before oak, soak, soak, soak.” The rhyme has long been used to predict the summer weather from the order in which these two trees come into leaf, but it is not a very reliable guide as the ash is almost always second of the two, whatever is to come.
Britain’s Woodland Trust, using records dating back to the 18th century, endorses the dubious worth of this rhyme. Even though, unlike the oak, it bears its delicate sprays of tufted flowers before the leaves emerge, the ash is rarely in leaf before the oak. However British summers are growing hotter and drier, so it may be premature to write off the forecast altogether.
The English oak (Quercus robur) can live for well over 500 and reputedly as long as 1,000 years. Many oaks appear as landmarks on old maps, and long-felled trees, thought to be stopping points when the bounds of a parish were “beaten,” live on in names such as Gospel Oak in North London.
The ash (Fraxinus excelsior), easy to recognize in winter from its black buds and silver-gray bark, is sometimes known as the Queen of the Forest and in Scandinavian mythology was called Yggdrasil, the tree of life.
While the strength of oak wood has long been prized for the weight-bearing timbers of houses and ships, ash combines both strength and elasticity, and is still the wood of choice for making crab and lobster pots. Ash is also prized as firewood, as it will burn when green, hence the saying: “Ash dry or ash green makes a fire fit for a queen.”
Oak Apple Day on March 29 celebrates the date in 1660 on which the exiled King Charles II returned triumphant to London. The connection with the oak is the tree at Boscobel in which he hid. The oak “apple” is a gall or swelling created in late spring by a wasp larva.
RAIN BEFORE SEVEN, FINE BY ELEVEN
An old English saying, and a good forecast of the weather in many other temperate locations, as long as you are liberal enough to take “seven” and “eleven” to mean early and late morning. It is certainly more reliable than its counterpart “fine before seven, rain by eleven.”
This saying works because the weather that accompanies a depression is unlikely to last more than four to eight hours, and rainfall that begins the previous evening is likely to peter out before noon the next day. A depression or low pressure area is formed when masses of cold and warm air meet and the warm air rises over the cold. As a result, clouds develop and rain falls. If the pressure falls even more it becomes windy as air is sucked in because, as in the school rhyme: “winds always blow from high to low [pressure].”
On average a raindrop measures 
inch (2 mm) across.
Raindrops, technically “precipitation that reaches the ground in liquid form,” result from the collision of droplets inside a turbulent cloud, making them large enough to fall to the ground. Alternatively, when supercooled water droplets and ice crystals exist together in a cloud, water droplets move towards and enlarge the ice crystals until they are large enough to fall. Whether they reach the ground as rain, sleet or snow depends on the air temperature.
According to a rhyme said to be by the 19th-century judge Baron Charles Bowen:
The rain it raineth every day
Upon the Just and Unjust fella,
But more upon the Just because
The unjust stole the Just’s umbrella
AS THE DAYS LENGTHEN THE COLD STRENGTHENS
The conclusion is correct because, in northern latitudes, the sea continues to cool down after the winter solstice on December 21 and this has an effect on the weather. However the lowest temperatures do not necessarily occur on January 14, the date midway between the end of autumn and the beginning of spring.
Because the sea cools (and heats up) more slowly than the land, the weather generally continues to get colder right through January and February. This means that when cold air blows from the north – especially when high pressure systems bring Arctic winds south – there is nothing to temper its effects. Occasionally, however, “old wives’ summers” – periods of unseasonably warm weather – occur in December and January. December 2015 was so warm in Britain that daffodils were in bloom before Christmas, while in the USA hundreds of weather records were broken in the 48 most southerly states. There can be little doubt that climate change is playing a significant part in these effects.
It is said that a January spring “isn’t worth a pin” – in other words, it won’t last and, even worse, can be bad for the crops, which overgrow or become “winter proud.” It may also predict wet weather to come, as in the saying “January spring, February wring.”
Contrary to expectation, the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth, Oymyakon in Siberia, which regularly experiences winter temperatures of –72°F (–58°C), lies outside the Arctic Circle. It freezes because high pressure over Siberia produces clear skies, allowing any heat in the ground a fast escape. It is also in a valley into which cold air plunges at night.
RED SKY AT NIGHT, SHEPHERD’S DELIGHT...
“Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s (or sailor’s) warning.” Wherever the weather comes predominantly from the west, the first part of this saying is one of the most reliable weather forecasts, as long as you distinguish a benign red sky from a livid, angry one.
Colors in the sky arise from the dust and moisture in the atmosphere, which split and scatter the sun’s light. At the beginning and end of the day, when sunlight travels farthest, the “long” red, orange and yellow rays of the spectrum are scattered least, and are therefore most visible. If, as the sun sets, the sky glows rosy pink, this signals dry air in the west, from where the next day’s weather will arrive. Moisture in the atmosphere makes the light disperse differently, creating the vivid yellow or reddish-orange clouds that predict rain.
In the morning, a yellow sky also forecasts rain. If it is a livid red, then the chance of rain depends on the type of clouds and their extent. As the 19th-century forecaster CL Prince observed: “If at sunrise small reddish-looking clouds are seen low on the horizon, it must not always be considered to indicate rain… It has frequently been observed that if [the clouds] extend ten degrees, rain will follow before two or three p.m.; but if still higher and nearer the zenith [the point directly above an observer], rain will fall within three hours.”
OTHER GOOD EARLY MORNING PREDICTIONS
For a rain-free day: Clouds driven away by the sunrise, gray sky to the east or a sea that is darker than the sky.
For rain to come: Dark clouds to the west, too bright a sky or a red sky, with the sun rising over a bank of cloud (a high dawn).
And don’t get near one either – they can be deadly. Camouflaged to look like floating logs, with only their eyes and nostrils visible above the surface of the water, crocs lurk in the shallows waiting to sense the smells and vibrations of nearby prey.
The song in which this phrase was coined was written in 1952 by Jack Lawrence and Frank Churchill for the Walt Disney movie version of Peter Pan, which was released the following year. In the story, the crocodile – which ticks because it had swallowed a clock – terrorizes the villainous Captain Hook. The first verse goes:
Never smile at a crocodile
No you can’t get friendly with a crocodile,
Don’t be taken in by his welcome grin,
He’s imagining how well you’ll fit within his skin.
A crocodile strikes with sudden, awesome power, instinctively shaking its prey from side to side. Experts say that playing dead, which can prompt the animal to leave its victim under rocks or logs to eat later, provides a slim likelihood of surviving an attack. Poking the creature in the eye or pulling its tail are other last resorts.
In a real life horror story from 2011, Australian cruise ship hostess Tara Hawkes was attacked by a crocodile that lunged into her leg and began to pull her under the surface of the water in Dugong Bay. She was saved only after her companion Al Sartori dived in and heroically jabbed his thumbs into the attacker’s eyes, making the crocodile relax its grip.
“Crocodile tears,” which stream from the reptiles’ eyes, are thought to be the way they rid themselves of excess salt. It was once believed that crocodiles used them, along with moaning sounds, to attract sympathy – and victims – hence their association with hypocrisy.
To tell crocodiles and alligators apart, look at the teeth: in a crocodile at least one tooth is visible at the side of the head when the mouth is shut. Crocodiles – unlike alligators, which apart from the rare Chinese alligator live only in North and South America – inhabit tropical regions throughout the world.
DON’T EAT WILD BLACKBERRIES AFTER MICHAELMAS
Because, according to legend, on Michaelmas night, September 29, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, the Devil spits or urinates on them. Certainly blackberries begin to lose their flavor at this time, when they are also likely to get damp and moldy or be affected by early frosts.
Seeds discovered by archaeologists in the stomachs of Neolithic human remains prove that Britons have been enjoying the juicy purple fruits of the blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) for over 4,000 years. And since medieval times blackberry leaves, infused in boiling water and with honey added, have been valued for treating inflammation of the mouth, and to soothe both digestive ills and the excruciating pain of gout.
Old recipes for blackberries include blackberry crowdie, made with oats, cream and rum, and bramble jelly. Paired with apples, they are the perfect ingredient for an autumn pie or crumble.
Known as “lawyers” because their thorny, arching stems are difficult to escape from once they entrap you, brambles were also commonly planted around graves, for the practical reason of deterring sheep and weeds; also to keep the dead in their place and the Devil out.
ON MAGPIES: ONE FOR SORROW, TWO FOR MIRTH
The magpie, with its striking black and white plumage and long tail, has long been a bird of ill omen. Its coloring is said by many to have come from its refusal to take on full black mourning after Christ’s crucifixion.
According to long-held superstition, whether ill luck – or some other life-changing event – will befall you depends on how many magpies you see together. A more upbeat version begins:
One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl and four for a boy.
Or alternatively (though there are several more versions):
Three for a wedding, four for death,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret, not to be told,
Eight for heaven, nine for [Hell],
And ten for the D…l’s own sell.
There are many traditional ways of dispelling the ill luck of seeing a single magpie. You should, some believe, bow and say aloud, “Good morning to you Mr. Magpie, Sir,” or, “Good magpie, magpie, chatter and flee, turn up thy tail and good luck fall me.” Others make great ceremony of removing their hats when a single magpie crosses their path; yet others will spit or make the sign of the cross on the ground.
Magpies will peck at windows, thinking that their own reflections are rival birds.
The magpie (Pica pica) is a close relative of the crow and except for Iceland breeds all over Europe. It is increasingly common near human habitations where it supplements its insect and grain diet with food scraps. The magpie’s reputation for stealing is immortalized in Rossini’s opera La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) of 1817 in which a maid-servant is condemned to death for the bird’s crime.
Young magpies, probably in search of mates, gather in treetop groups that in winter can be 20 or even 40 strong. These gatherings are known as parliaments, probably from their raucous “chak-chak-chakking” in chorus, like rowdy, roused politicians.
A CUCKOO IN SEPTEMBER, NO ONE EVER CAN REMEMBER
A tribute to the migratory habits of the cuckoo, although in some country districts people once believed that in the autumn cuckoos changed themselves into hawks in order to survive the winter at home in Britain.
This saying is the last line of a rhyme with several versions, one of which is:
Cuckoo, cuckoo, pray what do you do?
In April [Ap-er-il] I open my bill
In May I sing both night and noon
In June I change my tune
In July away I fly
In August away I must…
As the rhyme rightly relates, the call of the cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is most persistent in early summer, then it changes subtly to a “cuk-cuck-oo” later in the season. The cuckoo is renowned as a brood parasite, laying its huge eggs in the nest of small birds, including meadow pipits and hedge sparrows. The eggs hatch into large young, which evict the rest of the clutch. Their massive gapes are irresistible to the rearing instincts of the foster parents, which spend from 17 to 21 exhausting days bringing food before the fledgling cuckoo flees the nest.
Unlike the parasitical cuckoos of Eurasia, America’s yellow-billed cuckoos build their own nests in which to lay their eggs, although sometimes the female will lay in the nest of another cuckoo.
CUCKOO LORE
Like magpies, cuckoos are the objects of many superstitions:
The number of consecutive calls you hear is the number of years until you marry.
If you hear a cuckoo before the swallows have arrived, sorrow lies ahead for you.
When you hear the first cuckoo, look under your shoe. You will find a hair the same color as that of your spouse-to-be.
Whatever you are doing when you hear the first cuckoo you will continue to do all year.
If you have money in your pocket when you hear the first cuckoo then you will have wealth all year.
The luckiest time to hear a first cuckoo is on Easter morning.
They do – although they sleep lying down as well. This ability to stand and “power nap” allows horses to get the rest they need and to make a quick escape from predators if necessary.
Horses are able to doze standing up because they possess a stay apparatus, a system of ligaments and tendons that hold the creatures in a standing position while their muscles relax. They will spend 4–15 hours a day in “standing rest,” while taking short naps totaling about two hours.
The partnership between horse and humans goes back more than 6,000 years to the steppes where horses were kept for food and, before the invention of the wheel, became our first mode of transport.
Like humans, horses experience sleep of different kinds. Their standing or slow wave sleep (named from brainwave frequency) is a shallow sleep. Only when they lie down can horses experience rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the equivalent of our dreaming sleep. A horse needs comparatively little of this type of sleep, probably an hour or two a week, but without it is likely to become ill-tempered or neurotic.
Studies of horses show that they have more REM sleep when they live in groups, because one horse will stand sentinel while others relax in safety. Even in a comfortable stable a horse may feel isolated, confined – and wakeful – especially if it fears becoming “cast:” trapped against a wall with insufficient room to get to its feet if danger threatens.
The practice of shoeing horses began around 200 BC. Hanging a horseshoe at the threshold of your house or on a ship’s mast is said to keep away witches and evil spirits – but only if you make sure that the open end is upwards. This way, the good luck won’t fall out.
WHEN ROOKS BUILD LOW, IT’S A SIGN OF A WET SUMMER TO COME
Rooks are sociable birds that nest in rookeries, which at their largest consist of several thousand pairs. But rooks’ flight patterns are usually better weather forecasters than their building habits.
Because rooks return to the same place year after year, and because rookeries consist of many renovated old nests as well as some new ones, it is virtually impossible to link nest height with the coming weather. More significant to rook well-being is the rookery’s strict pecking order, with the oldest male bird at the centre, sheltered from the wind.
In the autumn, a male rook finds a nesting spot and sings to his partner, brings her food, then bows and calls to her before they begin together to make or renovate an untidy nest. Females will fight fiercely over building materials, fending off thieves. Sentries posted at the edge of the colony or parliament while chicks are being fed will warn when danger threatens.
Country people believe it is lucky to have a rookery near their house. If rooks suddenly leave, this is a sign that a death has occurred.
When rooks “tumble” through the air, it is said that rain is on the way, while rooks that twist and turn after leaving the nest are believed to forecast storms. Weather observers give these forecasts a reliability rating of 70 percent. A very noisy rookery is also said to presage unsettled weather.
The rook or castle on a chessboard is named from the Persian rukh, meaning warrior, although the game is thought to have been invented in India.
THE DEEPER THE CLOUD, THE HARDER IT SHOWERS
This good forecast is based on the reliable association between heavy rainfall and the appearance of towering cumulonimbus clouds in the sky. When the sun emerges between the clouds and the showers a rainbow may arch across the sky.
Cumulus clouds are heaped, but cumulonimbus are towering, mountainous ones, named from the Latin nimbus, meaning rain. The base is usually dark and the top is either wispy and fibrous, where water is freezing into ice crystals, or flattened into an anvil shape. From clouds like this, heavy “hard” showers may easily develop into full-scale thunderstorms.
Tornado alert: if pendulous breast-like blobs of cloud hang from the underside of the anvil (described as cumulonimbus with mammatus) a severe thunderstorm is imminent, and possibly even a tornado.
Cumulonimbus clouds develop only when the air is deeply unstable and mostly in summer when upward air currents are strongest. They form quickly and are usually short-lived. Once they have dropped their payload of rain – or hail or snow – they may quickly peter out.
A cumulonimbus cloud with an anvil top is known as a cumulonimbus incus. The largest of these, which are especially common in the tropics, can reach 6 miles (10 km) in height – higher than Mount Everest. Ahead of a very severe storm you may see the top of the anvil bulge. This is caused by an updraft of air carrying a parcel of cloud into the stratosphere.
The rainbow, produced when raindrops split white light into its component spectrum of colors, was God’s sign to Noah that the flood was over and his people’s punishment complete. Although fabled to have a pot of gold at its end, the rainbow is thought by some to be unlucky.
Especially if it lives at the Tower of London, where ravens are protected by royal decree. Traditionally ravens are afforded respect, for as well as being birds of wit and wisdom their voices are deemed to be deathly omens.
In London ravens have guarded the Tower for centuries. In response to complaints by the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed (1646–1719), that the birds’ activities were marring his observations, Charles II ordered their destruction. But to fulfil the prophecy that the absence of ravens would mean the fall of the monarchy, six were saved. Today, as insurance against accident and illness, seven or eight birds are kept.
LEGENDARY RAVENS
Many legends surround the omnivorous raven (Corvus corax), the world’s largest all-black songbird:
In the Bible, ravens brought food to the wilderness for the prophet Elijah.
The fluttering of ravens is said to have warned the Roman orator Cicero of his impending death.
According to the legends of the Pacific Northwest, the raven was the creator of the world and bringer of daylight.
In Swedish legend, ravens are the ghosts of murdered men.
When the raven croaks, beware; for when it says “corpse, corpse” people will sicken and die.
Ravens can smell death and are associated in history with places of execution where, after observing the proceedings, they would peck at discarded bodies.
Ravens mate for life and have been known to live for over 40 years. They are much bigger than crows and have fatter beaks. They are depicted in the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in France. Grip, Barnaby’s pet raven in Charles Dickens’s novel Barnaby Rudge, perfectly expresses the birds’ character and chattering voice when he says: “Halloa halloa halloa. What’s the matter here! Keep up your spirits. Never say die! Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil.”
ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET
Close scientific studies of elephant herds prove this to be true. These remarkable creatures not only memorize information essential to their survival but also seem to mourn their dead.
In the elephant family herd, which can number up to 20 females and their young (both male and female), the memory of the senior female, the matriarch, is crucial. It is she who remembers the location of fruitful food sources and reliable waterholes, even those located beneath desiccated mud. She also knows where danger lies and all the females in the group will clearly remember the distinctive smells of hyenas, lions and other predators.
The result of elephants’ powerful memories are “elephant roads,” tracks that often penetrate dense forest and are used for generations. When a matriarch dies a mature female, often her oldest surviving daughter, takes over the leadership and she, too, will remember routes taken regularly since she was a calf.
The easiest way to distinguish an African elephant (Loxodonta africana) from the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is that the African species has larger ears and a less humped back.
An elephant herd will often break into smaller groups, especially when food is scarce. On reuniting, the animals greet each other noisily, touching each other with their trunks. When an animal is ill the others in the herd cluster around, trumpeting their distress. If a mother elephant loses her calf she will stay with her dead infant, chasing off predators. And when they encounter the bones of a carcass, elephants will stop to touch them, as if in mourning, and even carry them off into the bushes.
ELEPHANT LANGUAGE
Rogue elephant – an aggressive individual living away from the herd. Pink elephant – a hallucinatory animal seen only by the inebriated. White elephant – an object of no use other than to give away.
Elephant and Castle – a part of London, but originally the name of a pub deriving from the ancient habit of placing a howdah or “castle” on the back of a war elephant.
Elephant’s foot – an African relative of the yam with a root resembling an elephant’s foot.
THE FOX MAY GROW GRAY, BUT NEVER GOOD
This saying epitomizes the cunning of the fox and its reputation as a wily hunter that does not change its ways, even with age. The creature features in folklore from around the world as a cunning trickster.
According to folklore, a fox gets rid of fleas in its fur by taking a leaf in its mouth, then walking backwards into water until it is entirely submerged, making the fleas either move on to the leaf or be drowned.
The face of the fox (Vulpes vulpes), with its pointed, slender nose – equipped with an acute sense of smell – sharp eyes and pricked ears, is the picture of cleverness. But its penchant for poultry, and its instinct for killing more birds than it could ever eat, makes this wily animal the farmer’s enemy. It is rumoured that a fox will carry off a goose from the farmyard with the head in its mouth and the body slung over its shoulder.
The fox wraps itself in its bushy tail, or brush, to keep warm at night. For women, wearing a fox fur around the neck – complete with the head, and often with jewels or cut glass in place of the eyes – was the height of 1930s fashion.
Although long and vigorously hunted as a pest and for sport, the fox continues to thrive in both country and town through its adaptability, opportunism and cunning. When chased by hounds, foxes will dive into one of many “earths,” backtrack on their own trails, walk along the tops of fences and even run through flocks of sheep.
In towns, foxes thrive anywhere food is on tap from rubbish bags or dustbins (they push the lids off with their noses), and will make earths for breeding and raising cubs in secluded spots in parks and gardens – even under wooden decking where they may accumulate piles of wrapping from discarded fast food remains. If you catch an animal’s eyes in your headlights and they shine white or blue then you’ve most probably encountered a fox.
In American folklore the trickster fox was popularized as Brer Fox in the Uncle Remus tales by Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908). Based on both European and African-American traditions, he is outclassed in wit and wiliness by his companion Brer Rabbit.
A BUTTERFLY LIVES FOR JUST ONE DAY
An exaggerated claim: without becoming a meal for a bird or bat, and allowed to fulfil its natural span, the minimum lifetime of a butterfly is about a week. But some butterflies, especially those that hibernate or migrate, can live for a year or more.
For a butterfly, food is a major factor in determining lifespan. As a general rule (though not infallibly), butterflies that feed solely on nectar – a high sugar but short-lived energy source – live for only two to four weeks. Butterflies of this kind include the papilios, a large group to which the swallowtails belong. Longer-lived butterflies, such as the beautiful heliconid butterflies of Central and South America and the clearwings of Costa Rica, which can live for up to 13 months, feed on both nectar and pollen, a diet that provides more sustained energy.
In the mid 1960s, at the height of his prowess in the ring, the late boxer Muhammad Ali coined the catchphrase “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
While most die at the end of summer, some butterflies, including the richly colored peacocks (Inachis io) with distinctive “eyes” on their wings, hibernate over the winter months in sheds and outhouses. On mild winter days they may emerge briefly. If so they should be left alone and discouraged from flying out into the open – to their deaths.
Of all long-lived butterflies, most remarkable are the orange and black monarchs (Danaus plexippus) of the northern USA and southern Canada. Adults that emerge in spring have a lifespan of only a few weeks but those emerging later migrate by the million to California, Mexico and Florida. Here they cluster in huge groups on “butterfly trees” used year after year (and probably located by smell) by new generations of adults.
After early spring mating the males die and the females head north, then lay their eggs on milkweed (Asclepias spp) before they too die. The caterpillars – an unmistakable green with yellow and white stripes – feed day and night on the milkweed then, like all butterflies, change into chrysalises from which newly metamorphosed adults emerge.
WHEN THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL CLOSES IT’S GOING TO RAIN
Not for nothing is this small, bright red flower known as the poor man’s weatherglass, change-of-the-weather, shepherd’s sundial and weather flower. It will invariably close its petals if the sky becomes overcast ahead of rain.
The scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis), a common weed of gardens, waste ground and dunes, is not, however, an all-day forecaster. For whatever the weather it will have closed its petals by 2:00 p.m. and will keep them shut until 8:00 a.m. If the petals open fully in the morning a fine day can be expected. But the reverse is not true. When the flowers fail to open first thing it is likely to remain cloudy, but the chance of rainfall is little better than about 15 percent.
Like the scarlet pimpernel, other flowers, including daisies (Bellis spp) and bindweeds (Convolvulus spp) close when the day is damp because the cells at the base of the petals detect and respond to increasing levels of moisture in the air. When they close towards the end of the day the petals are responding to lowering levels of sunlight.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Sir Peter Blakeney), the elusive fictional character, created by Baroness Orczy (1865–1947), was named from his use of the little red flower as his emblem.
The 18th-century Swedish botanist Carolus Linneaus, known as the father of taxonomy, devised a famous floral timepiece, “a clock by which one could tell the time, even in cloudy weather, as accurately as by a watch,” based on the specific times at which some flowers open and close each day. As he observed, “The Crepis [hawksbeard] began to open its flowers at 6:00 a.m., and they were fully open by 6:30. The Leontodon [hawkbit] opened all its flowers between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m.…” The scarlet pimpernel occupied the eight o’clock position.
A SWARM OF BEES IN MAY IS WORTH A LOAD OF HAY...
“A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon. A swarm of bees in July is not worth a fly.” Or in other words, by late summer the value of the swarm is minimal.
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) swarm to increase their numbers. In early summer the young queens are ready to fly from the hive, or from wild colonies established in old buildings or hollow trees. At the same time the workers become restless: they gather at the hive entrance, then go back in again to raid the honey cells for food.
When a new queen emerges, about half the workers first cluster, then swarm, around her as she flies off. If the queen has already been impregnated by a drone the swarm will seek a new home. If not, she may return to the hive she has just left, in which case any remaining unfertilized queens will be killed by the worker bees.
BEE MYTHS
No doubt because of their value, bees feature in many other superstitions:
If you dream of bees, you have unknown enemies trying to do you some mischief.
If a swarm settles on the roof of a house or the dead branch of a tree, it is a sign of death.
It is also a sign of death if a swarm comes down the chimney.
Do not drive a bee out of the house: you will drive out good luck.
To keep your bees, and to stop them stinging, inform the bees of a forthcoming wedding – and leave them a piece of cake.
When someone dies, tell the bees and put the hive into mourning with black ribbons; otherwise they too will die and will no longer bring you good luck.
During the summer a colony of honey bees consists of about 50,000 workers (sterile females) a few hundred drones (males) and one queen. The workers make the honey, which sustains them and which they feed to the queen and the drones over the winter. Of the 440 pounds (200 kg) or more of honey that a colony may produce, only about a third is used by the bees themselves. And the better use the swarm makes of the profusion of early summer flowers, the more honey they make.
A SWAN CAN BREAK YOUR ARM WITH A WING BEAT
This is usually untrue, although a wounded American swan once broke a hunter’s arm and an angry swan can inflict a nasty bruise. In Britain all swans on the River Thames belong, by law, to the Queen, or to one of two London livery companies.
The amazing transformation of the dowdy brown cygnet into a handsome adult in Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century fairy tale The Ugly Duckling is believed to be autobiographical in its inspiration.
Like all other birds, the swan has hollow bones that help to make it light enough to fly. This means that if it attacks something as solid as a human arm, the bird bones are the more likely to break. But attack it will, for swans are highly territorial and defend their nests, eggs and chicks (cygnets), using bony projections on their extended wings as weapons. Mute swans certainly kill both other swans and Canada geese, probably by drowning them.
Britain’s most common swan, and its only permanent resident, is the mute swan (Cygnus olor), which in fact makes a whole variety of hissing, snorting, snoring and strangled trumpeting sounds. The American swan (C. americanus), a close relative of the Bewick (C. colombianus bewickii), which visits Britain in winter and is named for the famous bird illustrator Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), migrates south from the Arctic tundra as far as Chesapeake Bay. Its feathers have long been prized for warm bonnets. The black swan (C. atratus), native to Australia and introduced into New Zealand, is a gregarious bird living in flocks of up to 50,000.
In the annual swan-upping ceremony on the Thames cygnets owned by the Dyer’s Company or the Vintner’s Company have their bills nicked with the company mark. Royal swans are left unmarked. This is a remnant from Tudor times: during Elizabeth I’s reign there were 900 different marks of ownership.
The world’s oldest swannery is at Abbotsbury in Dorset, where birds are tended by a swanherd. The post goes back to the Middle Ages, when swans were kept for food and regularly served as a delicacy at banquets.
IVY CAN PULL A HOUSE DOWN
Maybe not literally, but it can do serious damage if it penetrates cracks or crevices in weakened bricks or the mortar between them. Nor will it often kill a tree, although it may weaken one by depriving it of water and nutrients.
The ivy (Hedera helix) clings to its support, whether living or not, with “bearded” stems. The beards are in fact overground or aerial roots, which the plant uses to suck up additional moisture and dissolved minerals. Ivy can be so vigorous that it can grow to the height of a three-storey house or a mature tree, producing its own trunks up to a foot (30 cm) across.
According to legend ivy will prevent drunkenness, a belief that derives from the fact that it can easily smother a grapevine.
As ivy matures the leaves change in shape from triangular to diamond-shaped. It produces its pale green flowers late in the year and even on a sunny winter day you can see it buzzing with hungry insects relishing the energy-packed pollen. Beekeepers have long appreciated the value of ivy in topping up insects’ winter supplies of both nectar and pollen.
Ivy has long country associations with health, love and luck:
Ivy leaves will charm away warts and verrucas.
Give ivy to a ewe after birthing to restore her appetite.
Gather ivy and give it to cattle before noon on Christmas Day and the Devil will stay away for a year.
Place an ivy wreath on a grave on All Saints’ Day (November 1) to keep a soul safe.
If a girl tucks an ivy leaf down her bosom the next man who speaks to her will be her own true love.
To cure children of whooping cough, feed them from a bowl made of ivy wood.
THE LOUDER THE FROG, THE MORE THE RAIN
Frogs definitely perk up and “sing” more forcefully when the air is damp, whether or not rain is on the way. It is the males that have the loud voices – they employ them in the mating season to attract a female partner.
It is a truth of amphibian life that a moist skin is essential for activity, which is why frogs prefer being in damp places when they are on land. The frog’s croak, used to attract a fertile female, reaches a loud boom in the bullfrog (Rana catesbeina), whose voice is amplified by large resonating sacs at the side of its throat. By contrast, the common frog (R. temporaria), widespread in Europe, has a deep, rasping croak. The females reply with softer chirrups and grunts.
Frogs are good for the garden: as well as insects they consume large quantities of slugs and snails (shells included) as well as insects of all kinds. Flying insects are caught on the sticky tip of the long tongue, which is attached at the front of the mouth and quickly thrust out towards passing prey.
The edible European frog most favored by French gastronomes is R. esculenta. According to the renowned French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935) they are best poached in white wine, then steeped in a fish sauce with paprika and finally set into champagne jelly “to counterfeit the effect of water.” Preceding this last stage, Escoffier recommended arranging sprigs of chervil and tarragon between the legs to resemble grass.
In country districts, parents would briefly put a live frog into the mouth of a child suffering from an infection of thrush, in the expectation of a cure. A black ribbon, pulled through the body of a live frog and tied around the neck of a sufferer, was used as a cure for whooping cough.
THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM
An exhortation against lying abed and the folly of missed opportunities – and also a sound observation of both bird and worm behavior, despite the fact that in winter earthworms burrow too far down in the soil for even the most persistent birds to reach.
Birds sing at dawn to attract a mate but remain invisible to predators. Early singing also allows maximum time for feeding later in the day.
With endless energy earthworms till the soil, bringing subsoil to the surface from a depth of about 12–18 inches (30–40 cm) below ground, but sometimes from as much as 8 feet (2.4 m), grinding lumps of soil and ejecting them from their guts, and pulling leaves and other organic matter from the surface. Because earthworms are nocturnal, the early bird may catch them before they retire below ground at dawn.
In praise of the earthworms’ abilities to plow the soil Charles Darwin remarked: “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures.” He estimated that there are some 53,000 worms in every acre (0.4 ha) of soil.
When resting, worms lie vertically, head uppermost, below the surface of the ground. When they emerge from their burrows to feed their presence is detected by birds with keen eyesight. The blackbird (usually first to break into song in a city dawn chorus) will tilt its head to detect worms, which it pulls out unceremoniously with its strong, sharp beak. Its behavior is perfected to look for worms, not hear them – it tilts simply because its eyes are on the sides of its head. Thrushes and robins also enjoy worms, but no birds consume as many as nocturnal mammals – moles, hedgehogs and foxes.
The vigilant bird will also be on the alert after a rain shower, which brings earthworms to the surface. While dry leaves get stuck in the worms’ burrows wet ones don’t, so when the creatures sense rain they come to the surface for easy-to-use material. The moist air also means that they are able to move around on the surface without dehydrating.
CATS ALWAYS FALL ON THEIR FEET
Remarkably, they do. Using a combination of instinctive reactions and rapid movements they can right themselves in seconds, adding to their remarkable abilities to survive danger.
It is a fact of life that cats – and other animals too – need to be the right way up to function properly and, if placed on their backs, will struggle to re-orientate themselves. The marvel of the cat is that it rights itself with such speed and agility. Essential to the righting movements are the animal’s well-developed senses of vision and balance, the latter controlled via the fluid in the labyrinth of the inner ear, which by its continuous movement informs the creature of its positioning instant by instant.
The idea that cats have nine lives – one less it is said, than a woman – comes from their proverbial skill at surviving disaster. Cats have been known to emerge, unscathed, from homes demolished by bombs or earthquakes.
Slow-motion filming confirms that a falling cat performs a set sequence of movements. First the body is bent from the “waist” at an angle of 90°, with the front limbs kept close to the head and the hind legs splayed out from the trunk. Next the front part of the body is rotated through 180°, bringing the forelimbs vertical to the ground. Finally the back part of the body is rotated and the cat is the right way up with legs extended ready for a perfect landing.
UNDERSTANDING CATS
Other aspects of cat behavior are traditionally, although not reliably, purported to be significant:
Washing over the ears – rain is on the way.
Rushing about – an impending storm.
Washing in the evening – unexpected visitors.
Jumps into a baby’s cot – the cat intends to kill the child by sucking out its breath.
Jumps on the table – bad luck.
Most moths are indeed nocturnal – but by no means all. Luckily for the enthusiast many day-flying moths are superbly colored, their bright hues often advertising to birds the fact that they are poisonous.
Of all the world’s day-flying moths one of the most spectacular is the humming-bird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum). The moth, common in eastern Asia and across southern Europe, reaches southern Britain in large numbers in warm summers. Just like its avian namesake it hovers over flowers, sipping nectar from blooms such as phloxes and verbenas with its long proboscis and darting from one flower to the next. If your hearing is acute enough you may also be able to detect the high-pitched noise of its wing beats.
The caterpillars of the Isabella tiger moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) are called woolly bears because they are small, dark and covered in bristles.
Night-flying moths are mostly drab in color and though inconspicuous (many look very like leaves) can often be seen on vegetation during daylight hours. They use their powerful sense of smell to locate nectar. Unlike butterflies, which usually hold their wings together at 90° to their bodies, most moths lay their wings out flat when at rest. Look, too, for the typical feathery moth antennae, which contrast with butterflies’ knob-tipped antennae.
The day-flying five-spot burnet moth (Zygaena trifolii), whose gray wings are splashed with scarlet, is a species that birds learn to avoid. The moths’ bodies contain cyanide, which is formed from food by the caterpillars and transmitted to the adult during metamorphosis.
Attracted by the light, moths will often come indoors on summer nights. According to a country tradition, if a moth flies once around the light a postcard is on the way, twice a letter and three times a parcel.
DEW BEFORE MIDNIGHT, TOMORROW WILL BE BRIGHT
This saying is reliable because dew tends to form when the air is moist but skies are clear. According to the ancient Greeks dewdrops were the tears of Eos, the goddess of dawn.
The formation of dew depends, critically, on the temperatures of both the air and the ground, and the amount of moisture in the air. Also crucial is the dew point, the temperature at which the air, when cooled, will just become saturated with water vapor. So if on an early autumn evening the dew point is, say, 46°F (8°C), and the ground is still a warm 54°F (12°C), no dew will form. But once the ground temperature drops to 45°F (7°C), the water in the air will begin to condense, forming dewdrops.
Many dogs have rudimentary inner toes, known as dew claws, which need to be trimmed. The Saint Bernard has two sets of dew claws on the hind feet.
Artificial clay-lined “dew ponds,” designed to collect water for grazing animals, were first dug in prehistoric times and later by gangs of laborers. They always contain some water, but in fact are largely filled by rain. Some water condenses into them from mist or fog, however, and their contents are added to by dew that runs off marginal plants.
Dew has long been welcomed as a good omen. In the Bible, the book of Isaiah foretells the coming of the Messiah with these words: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth be opened, and a saviour spring to life.”