244

SEEING MAGPIES UNLUCKY.

reckoning and steering their course pursued by the bold navigators of the stormy Northern Ocean.

It is still believed that sea-gulls retiring to land foretell a storm; but the migration of sea-birds generally arises from their security in finding food, such as earth-worms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods. The fish on which they prey in fine weather in the sea leave the surface and go deeper.

Bourne says that, "seeing three magpies augurs a successful voyage ;" but this will scarcely hold good with the superstitions respecting the same bird formerly held by seamen. Sir Walter Scott relates that a friend on a journey to London found himself in company with a seafaring man of middle age, in the same mail coach, who announced himself as master of a vessel in the Baltic trade. In the course of conversation the seaman observed, "I wish we may have good luck on our journey; but there is a magpie!" "And why should that be unlucky?" said my friend. "I cannot tell you," replied the sailor; "but all the world agrees that one magpie bodes ill luck; two are not so bad; but three are the Evil One himself. I never saw three magpies but twice, and once I nearly lost my vessel, and afterwards, when I was on land, I fell from my horse and was much injured."

The swan was an omen of fair weather to mariners. Coleridge has immortalized the albatross, as the harbinger of good fortune, in the "Ancient Mariner: "

"At length did cross an albatross,

Through the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hail'd it in God's name.

"It ate the food it ne'er did eat,
And round and round it flew;
The ice did split with a thunder-fit,
The helmsman steer'd us through.

"And a good south wind sprang up behind;
The albatross did follow;

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners' halloa!

DOLPHINS foretellERS OF STORMS.

"In mist or cloud, or mast or shroud,

It perch'd for vespers nine,

While all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmer'd the pale moonshine.

"God save thee, Ancient Mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus;

Why look'st thou so?'

I shot the albatross !'

'With my crossbow

"And all averr'd I had kill'd the bird

That made the breeze to blow:

'Ah, wretch!' said they, 'the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!'"

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The albatross is remarkable for the extent of its wanderings; indeed, it may almost be said to pass from pole to pole, and is seen at a greater distance from land than any other bird. Hence sailors regarded this companion of their voyages with superstitious fondness.

Dolphins, as well as porpoises, when they play about a ship, are supposed to foretell storms. The ancient navigators, however, regarded them in a different light, and believed that they conveyed shipwrecked seamen to shore in times of peril. The story of Arion is well known; and Spenser, in his "Marriage of the Thames and Medway," alludes to this romantic fiction, at the sight of which

"All the raging seas for joy forgot to roar."

Like many other old pagan fictions, this story was invested by the earlier Christian converts with a deeper, holier meaning; and the dolphin, so constantly recognized in sculptures and frescoes, points, not to the deliverer of Arion, but to Him who, through the waters of baptism, opens to mankind the path of deliverance. We need scarcely be surprised at the superstitions of seamen in former days, when instances of such gross ignorance and credulity are found among the writers of those times. A belief long prevailed that the barnacle, a well-known kind of shell-fish found adhering to the bottom of ships, would, when broken off, become a species of goose. Several old writers assert this, and more than one from

246

NELSON AND HIS COFFIN.

personal observation. The numerous tentacles or arms of the animal inhabiting the barnacle-shell, which are disposed in a semicircular form and have a feathery appearance, seem to have been all that could reasonably be alleged in favour of this strange supposition.

Carrying dead bodies in ships has always been a sore point with sailors, and the sight of even an empty coffin works upon their prejudices. Such Nelson found was the case, when one was sent to him by a brother officer made of the main-mast of the French ship "L'Orient," to remind the illustrious hero that amidst all the glory that surrounded him he was but mortal. Nelson received the present in a proper spirit, and had the coffin placed in his own cabin in the "Vanguard," but the crew could not bear to have the obnoxious memorial in sight, and it was accordingly ordered to be sent below.

In the Orkneys, mariners on going to sea would consider themselves in the greatest danger if by accident they turned their boat in opposition to the sun's course. In Sweden it is considered a bad omen to turn the prow of a vessel towards the shore, and for any one to say "Good luck" to the fishermen when starting; also, that pins found in a church, and made into hooks, get the best fish. Tackle, they affirm, stolen from a friend or a neighbour, secures better luck than when purchased for money-a species of larceny more profitable to the fisherman than comfortable to his friends.

Sneezing—a potent omen in ancient times-had its portent for good or evil among seamen in former days: a sneeze on the left side, at the moment of embarking, foreboded evil, while a fortunate sneeze on the right side betokened a favourable voyage.

"Good luck" is as much the creed of the fisherman as it is of many superstitious persons on land. Only a few years ago, in a number of the "Banff Journal," it was related that the herring fishery being very backward, some of the fishermen of Buckie dressed a cooper in a flannel shirt with burrs stuck all over it, and in this position he was carried in procession through the town in a hand-barrow. This ridiculous ceremony was done to procure "better luck." It happened, also, in a district where there were several churches, chapels, and schools. The fishermen of the Firth

"GOOD LUCK" AND "BAD LUCK.”

247

of Forth believe that if they chance to meet a woman bare-footed who has broad feet, when they are going to their vessels, they will have "bad luck," and the same fatality attends the sale of fish for the first time in the day to a person having broad thumbs. It is considered "unlucky" to lose a water-bucket or a mop at sea. Children on board are regarded with favour by seamen as likely to bring good luck; not so a cat, which is sure to turn the scale of chance in the wrong direction. Whittington, however, the renowned "thrice Lord Mayor of London," could not have shared in this superstition, if some old stories are true. To play at cards on board is considered unlucky; at some places boats' crews are changed from time to time for the same reason.

I could multiply these instances by similar absurd delusions, many of which unhappily still prevail; but what I have mentioned will suffice to show you how superstition works upon its votaries, and especially on the sailor,

"Whose eventful life,

Whose generous spirit and contempt of danger,

His firmness in the gale, the wreck, and strife,"

does not exempt him from the failings of credulity, and who, as "Garrulous ignorance relates,

Will learn it and believe."

CHAPTER XXII.

MONSTERS OF THE DEEP.-SEA-DRAGONS.

"A world of wonders, where creation seems
No more the works of Nature, but her dreams."

MONTGOMERY.

HE subject I have chosen for the present chapter is one of the deepest interest, for it carries our thoughts to ages

beyond the human mind to conceive, when the ocean, covering an immense expanse of our globe, swarmed with gigantic reptiles in the highest state of development, living in the open sea, and seeking the shore occasionally, crawling along the beach in search of prey.

Those of my young readers who have been to the British Museum must have remarked with astonishment the collection to be seen there of huge fossil marine animals, which is probably the finest in the world, and to such, the observations I am about to make regarding them will have a deeper interest.

The term "fossil" (from the Latin fossilis) signifies, in general, anything dug out of the earth, and is applied to the remains of animals and vegetables that have, during the lapse of many ages, become petrified, and preserved in such a state as to enable naturalists to describe what they were originally. Some fossil remains are so small as to require the aid of a microscope to examine them, while others, such as I have alluded to, are of proportions so enor