Chapter Sun to Superstitions of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The crocodile will weep over a man’s head when he [it] hath devoured the body, and then he will eat up the head too.—Bullokar: English Expositor (1616).

Paul Lucas tells us that the humming-bird and lapwing enter fearlessly the crocodile’s mouth, and the creature never injures them, because they pick its teeth.—Voyage fait en 1714.

(14) Crow. If a crow croaks an odd number of times, look out for foul weather; if an even number, it will be fine.

[The superstitious] listen in the morning whether the crow crieth even or odd, and by that token presage the weather.—Dr. Hall: Characters of Vertues and Vices, p. 87.

If a crow flies over a house and croaks thrice, it is a bad omen.—Ramesey: Elminthologia, 271 (1668).

If a crow flutters about a window and caws, it forebodes a death.

Night crowes screech aloud,
Fluttering ’bout casements of departing soules.
   —Marston: Antonio and Mellida, ii. (1602).

Several crows fluttered about the head of Cicero on the day he was murdered by Popilius Lænas … one of them even made its way into his chamber, and pulled away the bedclothes.—Macaulay: History of St. Kilda, 176.

If crows flock together early in the morning, and gape at the sun, the weather will be hot and dry; but if they stalk at nightfall into water, and croak, rain is at hand.—Willsford: Nature’s Secrets, 133.

When crows [? rooks] forsake a wood in a flock, it forebodes a famine.—Supplement to the Athenian Oracle, 476.

(15) Death-Watch. The clicking or tapping of the beetle called a death-watch is an omen of death to some one in the house.

Chamber-maids christen this worm a “Death-watch,”
Because, like a watch, it always cries “click;”
Then woe be to those in the house that are sick,
For sure as a gun they will give up the ghost …

But a kettle of scalding hot water injected
Infallibly cures the timber infected;
The omen is broken, the danger is over,
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover.
   —Swift: Wood an Insect (1725).

(16) Dog. If dogs howl by night near a house, it presages the death of a sick inmate.

If doggs howle in the night neer an house where somebody is sick, ‘tis a signe of death.—Dr. N. Home: Dœmonologie, 60.

When dogs wallow in the dust, expect foul weather: “Canis in pulvere volutans …”

Præscia ventorum, se volvit odora canum vis;
Numina difflatur pulveris instar homo.
   —Robert Keuchen: Crepundia, 211.

Dog’s blood. The Chinese say that the blood of a dog will reveal a person who has rendered himself invisible.

(17) Echinus. An echinus, fastening itself on a ship’s keel, will arrest its motion like an anchor.—Pliny: Natural History, xxxii. 1.

(18) Egg. The tenth egg is always the largest.

Decumana ova dicuntur, qula ovum decimum majus nascitur.—Festus.