The gardener, even more than the farmer, is dependent upon the weather for opportunity to insert and to remove the plants tinder his care. I shall, therefore, give him all the prognostics which appear worthy of attention.

1. The hollow winds begin to blow,

2. The clouds look black, the glass is low;

3. The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep,

4. And spiders from their cobwebs peep;

5. Last night the sun went pale to bed;

6. The moon in halos hid her head.

7. The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 8. For see, a rainbow spans the sky;

9. The walls are damp, the ditches smell,

10. Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernell;

11. Hark ! how the chairs and tables crack,

12. Old Betty's joints are on the rack;

13. Loud quack the ducks the peacocks cry,

14. The distant hills are looking nigh;

15. How restless are the snorting swine, Hi. The busy, flies disturb the kine:

17. Low o'er the grass the swallow wings,

18. The cricket, too. how sharp he sings:

19. Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws. Sits wiping o'er her whisker'd jaws;

20. Through the clear stream the fishes rise, And nimbly catch th incautious flies:

21. The glow-worms, numerous and bright, Illumed the dewy dell last night;

28. At night the squalid toad was seen Hopping and crawling o'er the green; 23. The whirling wind the dust obeys, i And in the rapid eddy plays;

24. The frog has changed his yellow vest,

And in a russet coat is drest: 25. Though June, the air is cold yet still; 26. The blackbird's mellow voice is shrill 27. My dog. so alter'd is his taste,

Quits mutton bones, on grass to feast: 28. And see yon rooks, how odd their flight,

They imitate the gliding kite,

And seem precipitate to fal,.

As if they felt the piercing ball;

Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow,

Our jaunt cannot lake place to-morrow.

In the foregoing rhymes, attributed to Dr. Jenner, are comprised nearly all the natural phenomena which predicate approaching rain, and most of them are sustained by our more scienced knowledge.

Thus the wind, when rain is approaching, causes more moaning and whistling sounds in passing through the crevices and crannies of our houses, on the same principle that all other gases, in proportion as they are more or less heated, or more or less dry, cause louder or lower sounds in passing through the orifices of small tubes.

Soot falls because it absorbs more moisture from the air as rain approaches, and becoming heavier breaks away from its slender attachment to the chimney's walls. A halo round the moon is caused by the rays of its light passing through moisture precipitated from the air, and the larger the halo, the nearer is such precipitated moisture to the earth, and consequently the rain is at hand.

Walls become damp from the same cause that soot falls, when rain is approaching, namely, because the moisture in the air is more abundant, and in a state of mixture with it more easily separable. Walls that thus become damp, contain chloride of calcium, or other salts which are deliquescent, that is, absorb moisture from the air. Ditches smell in rainy weather, because all odours are conveyed with more facility by damp than by dry air. Not only does the pimpernell (Anagallis arvensis) close its (lowers when exposed to damp air, but those of many other plants are similarly sensitive. Convolvulus arvensis (field Bindweed), Anagallis arvensis, Calendula pluvialis, Arenaria rubra (purple Sandwort), Stellaria media (Chickweed or Stitchwort), and many others, are well known to shut up their flowers against the approach of rain; whence the Anagallis has been called "the Poor Man's Weather Glass." It has been observed by Linnaeus, adds Sir J. E. Smith, that flowers lose this fine sensibility, either after the anthers have performed their office, or when deprived of them artificially; nor do I doubt the fact.

I have had reason to think that, during a long continuance of wet, the Anagallis is sometimes exhausted; and it is evident that very sudden thunder showers oftener take such flowers by surprise, the previous state of the atmosphere not having been such as to give them due warning.

The cracking of furniture is the necessary consequence of the dry woody fibre expanding when exposed to moist-er air. Distant objects appear nearer when rain is at hand, because the air is rarer at such times, and objects always appear distinct in proportion to the rarity of the gaseous medium through which they are viewed. Swallows fly low at such times, probably for two reasons: insects are then more busy near the earth's surface, and the rarity of the atmosphere renders flying more laborious in proportion to the height to which a bird soars. The changed habits of animals at the approach of rain, arc perhaps to be accounted for by the altered state of the atmospheric pressure, and of the air's electricity causing a change of sensations which warns them by past experience that the season of discomfort or of pleasure, as their nature may be, is coming upon them.

These natural phenomena combined with a careful attention to the indications of the Barometer, are much less erring guides than tables founded upon the moon's changes. It is impossible, in the present imperfect state of our meteorological knowledge, to say that the moon has no influence upon the weather, but it is next to certain that other influences are much more powerful and controlling. The same moon rises and sets and changes in Hindoo-stan as in England, yet in that climate, its wet and hot and cold seasons, its northeast and southwest monsoons arrive with a changeless regularity and intensity that demonstrate the moon's influence there has no paramount control.

The facts established by Mr. Forster and other acute observers of the barometer, appear to be these: - 1. Not the great height or depression of the mercury is so much to be regarded as whether it continues to rise or decline. 2. If the mercury falls when the wind blows nearly from due south, rain is approaching. 3. If it falls in hot weather, there will be thunder. 4. If it rises in winter, frost is nigh; and if, the frost continuing, it still rises, there will be snow. 5. If it falls much during frost, a thaw will set in. 6. A change taking place immediately after the mercury rises or falls, rarely endures. 7. If the mercury continues to rise during wet weather, or to fall during fine weather, a permanent change will come.

I am indebted to Mr. W. H. White, one of the intelligent Secretaries of the Meteorological Society, for the following observations: -