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The hare is no doubt mythically connected with the phenomena of the sky, but upon what natural grounds it has been credited with such meteoric relations is a point not yet determined. I incline to think it will be found to lie, in part at least, in the habits which the animal displays about the time of the vernal equinox, and which have given rise to the popular saying, 'as mad as a March hare.' And perhaps this very restlessness in rough weather has been the cause of the animal being regarded as a disguised witch, actively engaged in 'brewing storms.'
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Hecate was supposed to frequently assume the feline form. Shakspere's witches evidently held it in reverence. One says, with great solemnity, on a momentous occasion,
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Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd. A very strong belief yet obtains, amongst persons better educated than the Lancashire peasantry, that cats can see better in the dark than in the light, and that they possess nine lives, or, in other words, that they require killing nine times, before they remain permanently defunct. The author of
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Choice Notes says that sailors have a firm belief that the presence of a dead hare on board ship is certain to bring about bad weather. They likewise object to having cats on board, and when one happens to be more frisky than usual, like a
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they have a saying that
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The same authority says that the throwing of a cat overboard will infallibly bring on a storm. Mannhardt says, in Germany, anyone who, during his lifetime, may have made cats his enemies, is certain to be accompanied to the grave with wind and rain. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ refers to a Dutch superstition of this class, in which a rainy wedding day is supposed to result from the bride's neglecting to feed her cat. Walter Kelly thinks
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Captain, which had left port on a Friday, the
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Agincourt, in order to satisfy the clamour of the crew, did not leave Gibraltar on the presumedly fatal day. The departure of the last-named war-ship on the Saturday, however, did not prevent her striking on the
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Pearl Rock