Barometers Realm

An especially attractive early British example of the comic animal-tail “barometer” postcard, combining popular weather humour with a genuine three-dimensional textile element.

The front depicts a donkey standing beside a water trough, with a dark fibre tail attached physically to the card. The instructions transform this simple appendage into a mock meteorological instrument: a dry tail means fine weather, a wet tail rain, movement indicates wind, rapid movement stormy weather, invisibility fog, and a frozen tail cold. The final line provides the punchline: “If Tail falls off … Earthquake.”