The evening television news brings us a prediction of tomorrow's weather, but prior to television and radio many people observed their animals in the belief that their behaviour predicted the coming weather.

Many French fishermen believed that if a cat passed a paw behind an ear while grooming its muzzle it was going to rain. If it cleaned its nose it would be windy. If it twisted or turned it would be the end of a period of bad weather. When the pupils in the eye were small it was low tide, and when they were large it was supposed to be high tide. Most importantly, if it turned its back to the fire it was predicting a shipwreck!

A fanner in Kansas, USA, believed his cat could not only predict tornados, but knew what buildings were in its path. His cat was nursing young kittens in his barn close to his farmhouse when over a period of a few days it moved them. On the night the last kitten was moved a tornado struck the area completely destroying the barn. The following morning friends from a farm several miles away came to see how much damage had been done and to return his cat and kittens which had spent the past few days in their barn. The mother cat had carried her kittens for several miles across country to a barn which she inexplicably knew was safe.

Scientists are convinced that many animals know of earthquakes in advance of them happening and it is thought that they are extra sensitive to the vibrations in the earth or alterations in the magnetic field.

Dingoes are thought to have reached Australia with sailors from south-east Asia and are thought to have helped locate land by reacting to the scent of land carried on the wind, and that changes in their behaviour may have helped predict storms and allow evasive action to be taken.