224 



These animals are of a bright green, and in 

 their wild state climb the trees in search of 

 insects, and make a peculiar singing noise 

 before rain. In the jar they get no other 

 food than now and then a fly, one of which 

 will serve a frog for a week, though it will 

 eat from six to twelve in a day if it can get 

 them. In catching the flies put alive into 

 the jar the frogs display great adroitness. 



Botany — The deficiencies of the ancients 

 in studying natural history are very striking, 

 if we compare their attempts in this depart- 

 ment witli their glorious productions in 

 poetry, eloquence, history, and morals. It 

 is. surprising what little progress they made 

 in their investigations into nature, and it is 

 the more remarkable that tliey should not 

 liave made more progress in botany, if we 

 consider their extreme partiality and almost 

 reverence for flowers. The secret which 

 explains tlie whole is their want of system. 

 Tliat has been the great engine of advance- 

 ment in modern times, for, as we under- 

 stand the term, the ancients had no 

 system in their study of nature. The 

 three great names among the ancients, as 

 l)rofessed naturalists, are Thcophrastus, 

 Dioscorides, and Pliny. But in none is 

 there tlie smallest attempt at what we now 

 understand by classification. Thcophrastus 

 describes about six hundred species, Diosco- 

 rides about seven liundred. But the con- 

 tentions among commentators to ascertain 

 tlie plants alluded to, arc endless and irre- 

 coucileable. Pliny's work is valuable, as 

 collecting all that had been done by Greek 

 authors before his time ; but the descriptions 

 are so vague, taken from such uncertain 

 marks, and, from comparison with other 

 plants, of which we know notliing, that as a 

 system of plants it is perfectly useless. Tlius 

 botany went on, till Lobel, in 1570, 

 adopted sometliing like a system of classes. 

 Tliis was improved by the two Bauhincs, 

 who published tlieir works, the Pinax and 

 Hist. Plant. Univ. in 1G23 and 1650. But 

 the first really systematic form given to 

 botany was by Ray, the great I^nglish 

 botanist, the second edition of whose Sy- 

 nopsis, liis great work, was published in 

 1677, and is, strictly speaking, a systematic 

 work, having an arrangement into classes, 

 genera and species, tliough in this respect 

 still very imperfect. Ray .van unquestion- 

 ably a great naturalist, and among the 

 fathers of natural history, ranks only second 

 to the illustrious Swede Ijinnsus. 



Oriental Archery. — In the life of Jehan- 

 gueir, written by himself, occurs the follow- 

 ing account of a feat of archery performed 

 at his court, which may serve as a stimulus 

 to our modern fashionable practitioners 

 with the longbow. "Another of the ameers 

 of my court," says lie, " distinguished for 

 courage and skill, was Banker Noodjum 

 Thauni, who had not in the world his equal 

 in the use of the bow. As an instance of 

 the surprising perfection to which he had 

 carried his practice, it will be sufficient to 



Varieties. [|Ai;g. 



relate that one evening, in my presence, 

 they placed before him a transparent glass 

 bottle, or vessel of some kind or other, a 

 torch or flambeau being held at some 

 distance behind the vessel, they then made 

 of wax something in the shape of a fly, 

 which they fixed to the side of the bottle, 

 which was of the most dehcate fabric : on the 

 top of this piece of wax they set a grain of 

 rice and a peppercorn. His first arrow 

 struck the peppercorn, his second carried 

 off" the grain of rice, and the third struck 

 the diminutive wax figure, without in the 

 slightest degree touching or injuring the 

 glass vessel, which v/as, as I have before 

 observed, of the very lightest and most 

 delicate material. This was a degree of 

 skill in the bowman's art amazing beyond 

 all amazement ; and it might be safely 

 alleged that such an instance of perfection 

 in the craft has never been exhibited in any 

 age or nation." 



Veffctadng Fungus in the Stomach of a 

 Cod — A French naturalist relates that a 

 fisherman brought him three pebbles about 

 the size of the first joint of a large thumb, 

 on which were implanted, by adhesion 

 (empatement), plants and rudiments of 

 plants of a fucus kind, which was identified 

 as the fucus confervoides described by 

 Bertolini in his Amienitates Italia?. On 

 one of the three stones was found an unique 

 plant, of considerable size, and nearly two 

 feet in length, in active vegetation. The 

 colour was a deep bottle green, except in 

 one part, which formed the ramified summit, 

 and which protruded by the arriere houche 

 of the animal. This part, nearly two inches 

 long, was transparent, of a pale violet red, 

 brittle, and more swollen than the lower 

 branches, which are green, flexible, and 

 sulficiently tenacious : above a second 

 stone, a plant, two thirds shorter than that 

 on the first stone, was growing. To this 

 was attached a plant about three inches 

 long, to the two sides of which, and at 

 from one and a half to two lines distance 

 two adhesions, not much smaller than that 

 of the principal plant, were visible, and 

 from which issued, in the shape of points 

 bent back into hooks, and two lines in 

 length, the rudiments apparently of two 

 new plants. Another adliesion, placed 

 laterally, and of less extent, bore, as the 

 germ of a third plant, a straight point, one 

 line and a quarter in length. Opposite to 

 the plant which was developed, and in the 

 direction of the length of the stone, was the 

 germ of a fourth plant, two lines long, and 

 also bent into a hook. The two other 

 stones had no similar germs of new plants, 

 but they might have been detached without 

 leaving any traces behind. Drying pro- 

 duced the s])ontaneous separation of the 

 others, and the jilant itself then came off 

 with the least touch ; the place it had occu- 

 pied could not then be discovered. The 

 method of attachment resembled an ad- 

 herence bv excluding the air. One of the 



