he next quarter," that is, three
months. Can any of your readers confirm the above, and add any similar
"weather rules?"

J. A., JUN.

Birmingham.

_Drills presaging Death_ (Vol. vii., p. 353.).--Your correspondent asks if
the superstition he here alludes to in Norfolk is believed in other parts.
I can give him a case in point in Berkshire:--Some twenty years ago an old
gentleman died there, a near relative of my own; and on going down to his
place, I was told by a farm overseer of his, that he was certain some of
his lordship's family would die that season, as, in the last sowing, he had
missed putting the seed in one row, which he showed me! "Who could
disbelieve it now?" quoth the old man. I was then taken to the bee-hives,
and at the door of every one this man knocked with his knuckles, and
informed the occupants that they must now work for a new master, as their
old one was gone to heaven. This, I believe, has been queried in your
invaluable paper some time since. I only send it by the way. I know the
same superstition is still extant in Cheshire, North Wales, and in some
parts of Scotland.

T. W. N.

Malta.

A friend supplies me with the information that before drills were invented,
the labourers {523} considered it unlucky to miss a "bout" in corn or seed
sowing, will sometimes happened when "broadcast" was the only method. The
ill-luck did not relate alone to a _death_ in the family of the farmer or
his dependents, but to losses of cattle or accidents. It is singular,
however, that the superstition should have transferred itself to the drill;
but it will be satisfactory to E. G. R. to learn that the process of
_tradition_ and _superstition-manufacturing_ is not going on in the
nineteenth century.

E. S. TAYLOR.

_Superstition in Devonshire; Valentine's Day_ (Vol. v., pp. 55.
148.).--This, according to Forby, vol. ii. p. 403., once formed in Norfolk
a part of the superstitious practices on _St. Mark's Eve_, not St.
Valentine's, as mentioned by J. S. A., when the sheeted ghosts of those who
should die that year (Mrs. Crowe would call them, I suppose,
_Doppelgaengers_) march in grisly array to the parish church.

The rhyme varies from J. S. A.'s:--

"Hempseed I sow:
Hempseed grow;
He that is my true love
Come after me, and mow."

and the Norfolk spectre is seen with a _scythe_, instead of a rake like his
Devonshire compeer.

E. S. TAYLOR.

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