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Death Signs

In one Irish family a cuckoo always appears before a death. A. lady who arrived on a visit at a house observed one morning a cuckoo perched. on the window-sill, but she felt. no alarm, for there was no sickness in the family. Next day, however, one of the sons was carried home dead. He had been thrown from his horse when hunting, and killed on the spot.

In another family a mysterious sound is heard like the crashing of boards, and a rush of wind seems to pass through the. house., yet nothing is broken or disturbed. The death of an officer in the Crimea was in this way announced to his family, for the news came immediately after the warning sound, and then they knew that the rush of the wind was the spirit of the dead which had passed by them, but wit-bout taking any visible form.