430 



Varieties. 



[APRIL, 



their use, end since the time of his em- 

 barkation he had not stood on his feet. 

 But after the discharge which took place 

 near the bed whereon the invalid was ly- 

 ing, he got up, walked on the deck, and 

 continued for a long time as if he had not 

 been at all ill. At lirst he was deprived of 

 his senses, but they soon returned, and 

 the cure was permanent. Other cures of 

 a similar nature have often been recorded, 

 of which the moral impression effected by 

 the fright may be regarded as in case as 

 the proximate cause. On board the New 

 York all the knives and iron forks be- 

 came magnetic ; but what happened to the 

 needles of the compasses was most re- 

 markablethey were all in the same room, 

 but the effects produced on them were very 

 different. Of some the magnetic action 

 was increased, of others diminished ; some 

 again had it destroyed, while of others the 

 poles were reversed. 



French Voyage of Discovery. A letter 

 has been received from the naturalists on 

 board the Astrolabe, Captain Durville, sent 

 by the French government on a voyage of 

 discovery round the world, dated Tonga- 

 Tabou (Friendly Islands) May 1827, from 

 which it appears that the vessel was car- 

 ried by the currents during a calm upon a 

 reef, and though it ultimately escaped de- 

 struction, the damage it sustained has been 

 serious, occasioning fears as to the result 

 of the expedition. 



Astronomy. In the month of February 

 1825, M. Struve undertook, with the large 

 telescope made for him at Munich, a gene- 

 ral view of the heavens, visible at Dorpat 

 having especially in view the double 

 stars. After two years indefatigable labour 

 he has discovered, that of more than 

 120,000 stars, 3,060 belonged to the first 

 four classes of double stars whereas the 

 catalogue which he had drawn up in 1820 

 contained only 500 of this kind. So re- 

 markable an increase in one of the most 

 important branches of the science has in- 

 duced the University of Dorpat to publish 

 a new catalogue of double stars. This is 

 accompanied by a correct and well en- 

 graved chart of the heavens, and by a re- 

 port, with some preliminary and general 

 remarks on the nature of the fixed stars, 

 and the motions of those celestial bodies, 

 the immobility of which was at no very 

 remote period taken for granted by all 

 astronomers. For. Quart. Jicv. No. 3. 



The Plague. When the plague broke 

 out at Malta in 1813, calomel was exhi- 

 bited internally, and strong mercurial fric- 

 tions were had recourse to, with perhaps 

 dubious success, after the patient was af- 

 fected with this formidable malady. Very 

 recently, an English physican at Cephalo- 

 nia, has subjected to a very strong mercu- 

 rial treatment, internally and externally, 

 some persons who have been exposed to 

 the contagion of the plague, and it has 

 been found that all those who had under- 



gone salivation, when the disease developed 

 itself, escaped with only sufficient symp- 

 toms to indicate the. nature of their attack ; 

 while those on whom the mercury had not 

 produced, to the full extent, its powerful 

 eifects, sank under the infection. 



Vindication of Herodotus.- " As the 

 crocodile," says Herodotus, " feeds in 

 the Nile, the interior of its mouth always 

 swarms with Idella (usually translated 

 leeches}. All birds, with one exception, 

 avoid the crocodile, and this one, the tro- 

 chiios, flies to it with eagerness, and ren- 

 ders it a great service ; for whenever the 

 crocodile comes to repose on the shore, 

 and then opens its jaws, the trochilos 

 penetrates into its mouth, and clears it 

 of the Idella. The crocodile is grateful, 

 and does not injure the small bird which 

 renders it so good an office." On this 

 passage the ingenuity of critics has been 

 variously exercised ; it has been treated as 

 a fable, and has met with zealous but ill 

 informed apologists. An eminent French 

 naturalist, M. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, dis- 

 covered during his residence in Egypt, 

 that the account of Herodotus was incor- 

 rect only in a few of its details, and his 

 notice on the subject, which was received 

 with much attention by the Academy of 

 Sciences, will not be devoid of interest, we 

 presume, to our readers. A small bird, 

 already described by Hasselquist, as cha- 

 rndrius sEgyptiacus, and answering nearly 

 to the small ring-plover of the French, is 

 always flitting about on the shores of the 

 Nile, and seeks insects, which are its prin- 

 cipal food, even in the jaws of the crocodile. 

 With its very slender beak, this bird can 

 take only diminutive insects, spawn of 

 fish, and those small particles of animal 

 matter which the motion of the water casts 

 upon the bank. If the trochilus be really 

 the small plover, the animals denoted by 

 Herodotus, are not leeches, which, besides, 

 are not found in the stream of the Nile, 

 but a very small insect of the class which 

 is found in moist and warm places in Eu- 

 rope, called gnats, and musquitos in Ame- 

 rica. These insects swarm on the banks 

 of the Nile, and when the ci'ocodile comes 

 to bask on the sand, he is attacked by 

 myriads of them. His mouth is not so 

 well closed but that they can enter it, 

 which they do in such great numbers, that 

 the interior surface of his palate, naturally 

 of a bright yellow, appears covered with a 

 blackish brown crust. All these sucking 

 insects insert their trunks into the orifices 

 of the glands, which abound in the mouth 

 of the crocodile : it is then the small 

 plover, which pursues them everywhere, 

 coming to his assistance, rids him of these 

 annoying assailants, and that without any 

 danger to himself, the crocodile being care- 

 ful, before closing his mouth, to make 

 some motion, which apprises the bird to 

 fly away. At St. Domingo, a crocodile 

 exists very like the Egyptian one is at- 



