382 FACTS AND INFERENCES, GRAVE AND GAT. 



SIMPSON'S PERSUADER. 



We have ourselves invented some of the best loch-trout 

 flies now in use, although we don't desire to dwell much 

 on that matter. It is a good, if not a great thing to be 

 modest as well as meritorious ; but we cannot refrain 

 from here alluding to our latest and not least ingenious 

 application of science to art, in the way of a ground-bait. 

 This consists of a small pellet, used like a salmon-roe, 

 with which it may be intermingled, and made of chloro- 

 form paste. We name it " Simpson's Persuader" in honour 

 of an Edinburgh professor, who has successfully intro- 

 duced the use of chloroform into other arts than those of 

 angling. A trout no sooner takes one of these pellets into 

 its mouth than it falls into a sweet sleep, and may be 

 instantly drawn ashore and put to death without its know- 

 ing anything more about it. We expect a first-class medal 

 from the " Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 

 mals," and surely deserve it far more than do long-winded 

 wearisome clergymen their i?10 a-piece, for inflicting on 

 their fellow-creatures the annual Gibsonian sermon on 

 the subject. — North British Review, vol. viii. 



THE DODO. 

 [One of Mr Wilson's most amusing papers appeared in 

 Blackwood s Magazine for January 1849. It was a 



