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 without taking any
visible form.