Opening and shutting one's eyes did not affect the vision. There they remained, both at the moment and for several succeeding years, during which time I was constantly in the habit of seeing "_my birds_," as we used to call them. About six months after their first appearance in the pure, clear atmosphere of Victoria (Vancouver), I was driving across the Blackheath Common on a very bright, frosty day, and looking out of the open window of my carriage, I saw my six birds as usual; but for the first time, parallel with them and lower down, were six new birds of just the same size and appearance (about half-an-inch between the tips of the wings).
A few days later the new birds and the old ones had amalgamated, and twelve little swallows floated in the air before my eyes. I could not see them in the house. It needed the background of uninterrupted sky apparently to throw them into sufficient relief to be recognised. After some years, this special sign was withdrawn, and others have taken its place. For example, I have seen in the same way, during the last fourteen years, an anchor, with the chain attached to it, and caught through one end of the former, a short reaping hook. This, doubtless, has some symbolical meaning. Near the anchor I see a sacrificial altar, with flames rising up from it; then a triangle, with loops at the corners, which I was once told was the sign of Nostradamus. Then an old-fashioned mirror in a quaintly-shaped frame, and finally a long staff, with the sign of Aries at one end. I have since realised that this is very much like the "Staff of Faith" found on the top of many of the tombs in the Roman catacombs. All these latter emblems come together as a rule, with a connecting thread binding them to each other. I cannot see them at will, but when the atmosphere is at all clear they are rarely absent, when I have time to look for them. I was much amused once by an earnest Christian scientist, with whom I happened to be spending a few days on the coast of the eastern counties. She had warned me repeatedly against "phenomena" of every kind, spontaneous or induced. On a specially bright morning we were sitting together in a beautiful park, which is thrown open to strangers on special days, and, forgetting my companion's prejudices, I exclaimed involuntarily: