PHENOMENA. 445 



professed to be in health, his looks were haggard and care- 

 worn. He was already, probably, stricken by the plague, 

 for three days afterwards he was numbered with the 

 dead ! 



In 1850, the cholera again visited Gothenburg, though 

 with less fatal effect than in 1834. Profiting by what had 

 occurred on the former occasion, needful and timely pre- 

 parations were made; and, excepting in a few solitary 

 instances, when " the quicksilver fell below the knees," 

 every one was at his post. The public mind was thus 

 tranquillized ; and, though some sixteen hundred sickened, 

 and the half of that number died, everything went on in 

 the town as if the enemy had been at a thousand miles 

 distance. 



It may be deserving of mention, that in some places in 

 Sweden, where cholera raged at this time, phenomena occurred 

 for which it is difficult to account. Dr. Willman assures me, 

 for instance, that soon after the disease broke out in the 

 town of Malmo, where it caused great havoc, the jackdaws, 

 which breed in large numbers in the church steeple, simul- 

 taneously disappeared ; and that it was not until after the 

 cessation of the disorder that they returned to their old 

 quarters. The same was also the case with the sparrows. 

 The fish on the coast, moreover, especially on one particular 

 day, came up dead to the surface, in large numbers. 



The Doctor also assured me, that when he was in Finland 

 in 1848, in which country the cholera was then raging, the 

 herrings, in large quantities, were frequently found dead in 

 the Gulf of Finland. 



When the cholera had all but disappeared in Gothenburg, 

 the Governor, M. Fahrseus, whose conduct under the heavy 



