lose MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 



Reformed Education — The Monthly Repository for February contains 

 a very interesting account of Mr. Heldenmaier's school at Worksop, in 

 which the ruling principle is love and respect, and not, as is usually the case. 

 fear. Prizes and punishments are wholly excluded ; the classics are not cul- 

 tivated more than they deserve, things rather than words being aimed at. 

 "We have long known Mr. Heldenmaier as a most zealous and able instructor 

 of youth, and recommend all our educational friends to pay a visit to his 

 seminary ; we can assure them they will not regret the time thus spent. In 

 the mean while let parents and school-masters peruse the article which we 

 have noticed above, and profit by it. It will prove to them — what probably 

 they never dreamt of before — that instruction may be so imparted as to be 

 equally pleasing to the pupils with their out-of-door recreations. 



Cunning of the Dotterel Plover ( Charadrius morinellus, L.inn.) — 

 Having lately read, at page 5 of Mr. Salmon's pamphlet,* the fact concern- 

 iog the Dotterel Plover, I may mention a confirmatory incident which oc- 

 curred to myself thirty years ago. In the height of summer I was ascend- 

 ing, in company with my eldest son and an experienced guide, from Kes- 

 wick, the conical mountain Red Pike, which rises over the upper end of the 

 Lake of Crummock. We pursued a very steep route, as the shortest. 

 Close to the top we had to clamber up a breast-work of rock, nearly perpendi- 

 cular, which entirely sheltered us from observation until our heads emerged 

 above it. There we at once found ourselves close to a flock of Dotterels, 

 all of which, except one, instantly flew oflT to distant places of safety. The 

 lingerer, with which I was almost in contact, immediately dropped its wing, 

 and limped and fluttered before me on its side, like a wounded bird, which I 

 was simple enough thoroughly to believe it to be, and also every moment to 

 imagine, while stooping over it, that I should infallibly pick it up at the 

 next trial. Various fruitless attempts, however, followed. The wily bird 

 always kept just, and but just, out of my reach : and when at length it had 

 drawn off its unsuspecting pursuer to a sufficient distance from its young, 

 which, no doubt, were hidden among the broken and overhanging stones near 

 the spot where we first presented ourselves (and where the guide had been 

 sedulously but unsuccessfully searching for them during the whole of my 

 chase), it suddenly sprang up with expanded wings, and vigorously flew 

 across a valley to an opposite hill. I never was more fully deceived ; nor do 

 I ever recall the circumstance without being heartily amused at the cunning 

 of the bird and at my own credulity. — T. Gisborne, Yoxall Lodge^ Stafford- 

 shire, January 24, 1837- 



Shooting Stars. — The Paris journals state that, during the night of the 

 13th of November, about one hundred and fifty shooting stars were seen in 

 the heavens ; but there were no appearances to sustain the astronomical ex- 

 pectations founded on the American accounts, of thousands of planetary bo- 

 dies approaching the earth's sphere at this annual period. Shooting stars 

 are usually seen between the 13th and 15th of November. 



Qualifications of Teachers — When will a knowledge of human na- 

 ture be deemed an essential qualification of a teacher ? In other words, 

 when will he, whose business it is to mould minds and dispositions, be expect- 

 ed to have some acquaintance with the materials he has to deal with ? — F. 

 Hill on National Edvcation^ voL i., p. 70. 



• A Catalogue and Account of some of tlie rarer Birds of Norfolk, by J. D. Salmon ;— 

 printed for pnvate circulation.— Eds. 



