over the bed, and was clearly visible
to herself and her sister. The phenomenon worried her so that she became
ill, and was eventually ordered abroad. She went to Cairo and enjoyed a
brief respite; the hauntings, however, began again, and this time became
so persistent that she at last lost her reason, and had to be brought
home and confined in a private asylum, where she shortly afterwards
died. Though I cannot vouch for the truth of this story, I do think it
is somewhat risky to make fun of certain of the Egyptian relics in the
Museum. They may be haunted by something infinitely more alarming than
the ghosts of magpies. There are many sayings respecting the magpie as a
harbinger of ill luck. In Lancashire, for example, there is this rhyme:

"One for anger, two for mirth,
Three for a wedding, four for a birth,
Five for rich, six for poor,
Seven for a witch, I dare tell you no more."

From further north comes this couplet:

"Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee,
Turn up thy tail, and good luck fall me."

Rooks, again, are very psychic birds; they always leave their haunts
near an old house shortly before a death takes place in it, because
their highly developed psychic faculty of scent enables them to detect
the advent of the phantom of death, of which they have the greatest
horror. A rook is of great service, when investigating haunted houses,
as it nearly always gives warning of the appearance of the Unknown by
violent flappings of the wings, loud croaking, and other unmistakable
symptoms of terror.

Owls, though no less sensitive to superphysical influence, are not
scared by it; they and bats, alone among the many kinds of animals I
have tested, take up their abode in haunted localities, and with the
utmost sang-froid appear to enjoy the presence of the Unknown, even in
its most terrifying form.

The owl has been associated with the darker side of the Unknown longer
than any other bird.

"Solaque, culminibus ferali carmine bubo. Saepe queri et longas in
fletum ducere voces," writes Virgil.

Pliny, in describing this bird, says, "bubo funebris et maxime
abominatus"; whilst Chaucer writes: "The owl eke that of death the bode
ybringeth."

In the Arundel family a white owl is said to be a sure indication of
death.

That Shakespeare attached no little importance to the fatal crying of
the bird may be gathered from the scene in _Macbeth_, when the murderer
asks:

"Didst thou not h