The animals, too, afford us certain presages; dolphins, for instance, sporting in a calm sea, announce wind in the quarter from which they make their appearance.708 When they throw up the water in a billowy sea, they announce the approach of a calm. The loligo,709 springing out of the water, shell-fish adhering to various objects, sea-urchins fastening by their stickles upon the sand, or else burrowing in it, are so many indications of stormy weather: the same, too, when frogs710 croak more than usual, or coots711 make a chattering in the morning. Divers, too, and ducks, when they clean their feathers with the bill, announce high winds; which is the case also when the aquatic birds unite in flocks, cranes make for the interior, and divers712 and sea-mews forsake the sea or the creeks. Cranes when they fly aloft in silence announce fine weather, and so does the owlet,713 when it screeches during a shower; but if it is heard in fine weather, it presages a storm. Ravens, too, when they croak with a sort of gurgling noise and shake their feathers, give warning of the approach of wind, if their note is continuous: but if, on the other hand, it is smothered, and only heard at broken intervals, we may expect rain, accompanied with high winds. Jackdaws, when they return late from feeding, give notice of stormy weather, and the same with the white birds,714 when they unite in flocks, and the land birds, when they descend with cries to the water and besprinkle themselves, the crow more particularly. The swallow,715 too, when it skims along the surface of the water so near as to ripple it every now and then with its wings, and the birds that dwell in the trees, when they hide themselves in their nests, afford similar indications; geese, too, when they set up a continuous gabbling,716 at an unusual time, and the heron,717 when it stands moping in the middle of the sands.