nails still survives, despite the protestation of old
Sir Thomas Browne. He says:--

"That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may
be collected from spots in our Nails, we are not averse to concede. But
yet not ready to admit sundry divinations vulgarly raised upon them. Nor
do we observe it verified in others, what _Cardan_ discovered as a
property in himself: to have found therein signs of most events that ever
happened unto him. Or that there is much considerable in that doctrine of
Cheiromancy, that spots in the top of the Nails do signifie things past;
in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come. That
White specks presage our felicity; Blue ones our misfortunes. That those
in the Nail of the Thumb have significations of honour, those in the
fore-Finger, of riches, and so respectively in other Fingers (according
to Planetical relations, from whence they receive their names), as
_Tricassus_ hath taken up, and _Picciolus_ well rejecteth."

No. 148.--A very complete account of the signification of moles is quoted
from "The Greenwich Fortune Teller," in Brand's _Popular Antiquities_
(Bonn's ed.), iii. 254.

CHAPTERS IV. AND V.--Two of the most interesting and most accessible
lists of projects and Halloween observances are Gay's well-known
_Shepherds Week_ and Burns's _Halloween_.

No. 170.--It is an interesting psychological fact that projects are in
the great majority of cases tried by girls and young women rather than by
boys and young men.

No. 174.--Here, as in many other cases, it is assumed that young men and
women are accustomed to indulge in promiscuous kissing. The use of the
word gentleman sufficiently indicates the level of society from which
this project was obtained. Gentleman in this sense signifies any male
human being over sixteen. It is often used more specifically to mean
sweetheart, as "Mary and her gentleman were at the policemen's ball."

No. 184.--On Biblical divination see Brand's _Popular Antiquities_
(Bonn's ed.), iii. 337, 338.

No. 186.--This custom of divining the color of the hair of one's future
wife or husband, which is probably very old, yet survives in many places,
but with interesting modifications as to the bird which gives the signal
to try the divination. In Westphalia it is at sight of the first swallow
that the peasant looks to see if there be a hair under his foot.
According to Gay, in England it is the cuckoo.

"When