is a fatal lamb for
me." As her son lived several miles from Uig, and was a fisherman,
realisation seemed to my father very unlikely, but one month afterwards
the realisation occurred only too true. Unknown to his mother, who had
warned him against having anything to do with sheep or lambs, the son
one day, instead of going out in his boat, thought he would take a
holiday inland, and went off to Uig, where a farmer enlisted his
services in separating some lambs from the ewes. One of the lambs ran
away, and the fisher lad ran headlong after it, and not looking where he
was going, on catching the lamb was pulled by it to the edge of one of
the very picturesque but exceedingly dangerous rocks at Uig. Too late
realizing his critical position, he exclaimed, "This is a fatal lamb for
me," but going with such an impetus he was unable to bring himself up in
time, and, along with the lamb, fell over into the ravine below, and
was, of course, killed on the spot. The farmer, when he saw the lad's
danger, ran to his assistance, but was only in time to hear him cry out
in Gaelic before disappearing over the brink of the precipice. This was
predicted by the mother a month before. Was this simply a coincidence?'

Dr. Macgregor's remarks on the involuntary and unwelcome nature of the
visions is borne out by what Scheffer, as already quoted, says concerning
the Lapps.

In addition to visions which thus come unsought, contributing knowledge of
things remote or even future, we may glance at visions which are provoked
by various methods. Drugs (_impepo_) are used, seers whirl in a wild
dance till they fall senseless, or trance is induced by various kinds of
self-suggestion or 'auto-hypnotism.' Fasting is also practised. In modern
life the self-induced trance is common among 'mediums'--a subject to which
we recur later.

So far, it will be observed, our evidence proves that precisely similar
_beliefs_ as to man's occasional power of opening the gates of distance
have been entertained in a great variety of lands and ages, and by races
in every condition of culture.[23] The alleged experiences are still
said to occur, and have been investigated by physiologists of the eminence
of M. Richet. The question cannot but arise as to the residuum of fact in
these narrations, and it keeps on arising.

In the following chapter we discuss a mode of inducing hallucinations
which has for anthropologists the interest of universal diffusion. The
width