niE naturalists' club. 59 



eveu if myriads of ages were required to produce a perceptible effect, 

 still this would be sufficient to destroy the perpetuity of the system, 

 and a time miglit be conceived when the diminished orbits of the planets 

 would bring them in contact with tlie sun, unless tlie impulsive power 

 of the rays or some unknown cause should produce a compensation. — 

 This difficulty, so far from being diminished, would appear to be in- 

 creased by the supposition that there exists a luminiferous medium, to 

 whose vibrations the sensation of sight is due ; for if this be supposed 

 to be material, a like resistance would be offered, unless, which is con- 

 trary to all analogy, its particles be supposed capable of passing as freely 

 through the dense substance oi^ the planets as through the otherwise un- 

 occupied parts of space. H. H. 



THE NATURALISTS CLUB. NO. II. 



In the month of November, 1845, two of the characters, who took 

 part in the proceedings, of which an account may be found in the num- 

 ber of the Literary Record and Journal of the then current month, 

 might have been seen in a front room above stairs in York, Pennsylva- 

 nia. The room had book-cases and writing-desks upon two sides : 

 large breeding-cases occupied another ; a cabinet filled an angle, which 

 "very properly did not appertain to the external wall ; and upon the 

 walls were suspended forceps, nets, a portrait of Linnaeus, and a Meer- 

 schaum^ with a scarlet bag suspended from the same nail, and lettered 

 in black cabalistic characters — S^ailcOtflbaf. A closet near the fireplace 

 Avas filled with boxes which, judging from a number of the same kind 

 lying upon a table in no little confusion, contained duplicate insects, 

 from which some one appeared to have transferred a considerable num- 

 ber into a box two inches deep, five wide, and nine long, of German 

 manufacture ; being made of bits of pasteboard glued together and cov- 

 ered with a fragment of copy-book, bearing glyphiks of the higher or- 

 der, id est, hieroglyphiks, in Teutonic chirography. 



The gentleman, who seemed the host, had just received the Literary 

 Record of Pennsylvania College, and glancing over the table of con- 

 tents upon the cover, turned to the article whose title he liked best, and 

 read it with great pleasure, whilst his visitor was examining a drawer of 

 Staphylinidee. So pleased was he, that he communicated his satisfaction 

 to his friend, at the same time leaping up and throwing t!ic periodical 

 towards him that he might judge for himself. Unfortunately he forgot 

 the proverb, '•'■look before you leap," and das Bi'ichlcin made a "fell 

 swoop" upon tlic Brachelytra, decapitating a much prized Oxypoiuj in 



