e old saying.

No. 1241.--See article, "Survivals of Sun Worship," by the author, in
_Popular Science Monthly_, June 9, 1895.

No. 1247.--To what extent an old custom of touching the dead survives I
cannot say, but I well remember a painful experience of my own early
childhood. I had been taken to the funeral of a little child, and at the
proper time passed with the little procession to take leave of the dead
baby. A lady who had charge of me turned down the wrist of my glove and
bade me touch the corpse, which I did. At the time I felt it was to show
me how cold were the dead, but I now think it must have been in
conformity with some tradition, for the person who directed me was one
who had great regard for what were deemed the proprieties in funeral
rites.

Nos. 1335-1338.--It is quite a general custom among country people on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland to decapitate a crowing hen. The same custom is
reported from New Hampshire and from Prince Edward Island. Does not this
proverb then refer to the common superstition that it presages death or
disaster for a hen to crow, in consequence of which such hens are
summarily killed?

No. 1415.--There is a somewhat widespread prejudice in the minds of old
people against having their pictures taken, particularly if they have
never done so. I do not think the objection is a natural conservatism, or
dislike of doing something to which one is unaccustomed. The ill omen
does not appear to have been feared for the young as well as for the old,
even in provincial localities, when for the first time portraiture by
daguerreotypy or more recently by photography was introduced. It has long
been known that among primitive peoples there is a decided prejudice
against portraiture. The notion seems to be that the individual may lose
his vigor, if not his life, by allowing a copy of himself to be made in
any way. Catlin in his intercourse with the North American Indians found
great difficulty in gaining the consent of individuals to his painting
them. He says in his work on _The Manners, Customs, and Condition of the
North American Indians_, "The Squaws generally agreed that they had
discovered life enough in them [Catlin's portraits] to render my medicine
too great for the Mandans; saying that such an operation could not be
performed without taking away from the original something of his
existence which I put in the picture, and they could see it move, could
see it stir." Herbert Spenc