Popular Superstitions: The howling of a dog at night (colour litho)

The howling of a dog at night. For ages it was believed that dogs possessed the power of "scenting death" even before it seized a person, but the superstition which tells us that the howling of a dog at night foretells death probably goes back to the remote days when the nocturnal howling of his half-domesticated dog warned the caveman of the approach of wild beasts or human enemies. There must have been frequent occasions when such howlings were followed by a death. Illustration for one of a set of 25 cigarette cards on the subject of Popular Superstitions issued by Godfrey Phillips in 1930.