May 1, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



369 



they come from the maiuland by swimming across the 

 bay, which at its narrowest part is a quarter of a mile 

 wide 1 This would seem like a great undertaking for a 

 nou-aquatic species, but, nevertheless, it is the only way 

 in which they could have come. A migration of snakes 

 has never before come under my notice, and yet I must 

 consider this sudden appearance of " blowing vipers " as 

 such. It is higlily proliable that food became scarce in 

 their old haunts, and they migrated to the island in hopes 

 of finding food more plentiful. It is not i)robable that 

 their sense of smell is so highly developed as to have 

 scented the toads from such a distance, and that they were 

 quitting their old home with the certain knowledge that 

 food in abundance awaited them on this sandy island. 



In the summer t'oUowing this migration, toads were not 

 numerous, and only a few snakes were observed ; and such, 

 I learn, has been the case tor the two or three intervening 

 years since then. Of course, great numbers of the snakes 

 were killed by man ; not because thej' were thought to be 

 poisonous, for this species is here generally and correctly 

 understood to bo perfectly harmless, nor always for mere 

 wantonness, but from the belief that in destroying the 

 snakes they were preserving the lives of many toads, which 

 were beneficial to man, inasmuch as they fed upon mos- 

 quitoes. Now, the tormenting mosquito {Culex damnosus) 

 is by far too small a species of game for the toad. I have 

 examined the contents of the stomachs of several maritime 

 toads, but failed to find mosquitoes. Very young toads, 

 which have just left the water and the tadpole stage, do 

 feed upon minute insects, such as gnats, ants, aphides, 

 <kc., but I refer only to the mature animals. — Scientific 

 American. 



OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 



A WEEK'S CONVERSATION ON THE PLURALITY OF 



WORLDS. 



By Mons. de Fontenelle. 



with notes by richard a. proctoe. 



(Continued from p. 324.) 

 THE SIXTH EVENING. 



ITEW OBSERVATIONS CONFIRMING THE PRECEDING ONES, 

 AND SOME FURTHER DISCOVERIES MADE IN THE HEAVENS. 



'rjlIS so long since the Marchioness and I had any dis- 

 X course concerning the planetary worlds, that we 

 began to question whether we had ever talked on that 

 subject I went one day to visit her, and came in just as 

 two very polite gentlemen had taken their leaves of her. 



" Well ! " says Madam, the very moment she perceived 

 me, "you see what visiters I have had; and I protest it 

 has given me some room to suspect it has been in your 

 power to impose upon my judgment." 



" I should be very proud," reply 'd I, " if I could flatter 

 myself with such a power, because I look upon it to be the 

 hardest task any one could attempt." 



" As hard as it is," says she, " I am afraid you have done 

 it. I know not how it came about, but our conversation 

 turned upon the plurality of worlds with my two friends 

 who are just gone : I am not certain, but they might in- 

 troduce the discourse with a malicious design. I made no 

 scruple to tell them directly, that all the planets were 

 inhabited ; one of them reply'd, he was very well satisfy'd 

 I did not believe a word of it ; and I, with all the sim- 

 plicity imaginable, maintain'd it was my real opinion ; he 

 still look'd upon it as a piece of dissimulation, design'd to 

 divert the company ; and I thought what made him so 



positive that I did not believe my own sentiments was, 

 that he had too high an opinion of me to conceive that I 

 could entertain so extravagant a notion. As for the other 

 gentleman, who had not altogether that esteem for me, ho 

 took me at my word. For God's sake, why did you put a 

 thill"- in my head which people that value me cannot think 

 I maintain seriously 1 " 



"Nay, madam," says I ; "but why would you attempt 

 to maintain any serious position among a set of people who, 

 I am sure, never entered into a way of reasoning which had 

 the least cast of seriousness. Wo should not atliont the 

 inhabitants of the planets so highly ; but content ourselves 

 with being a little select number of advocates for them, and 

 not communicate our mysteries to the vulgar." 



" How," says the Marchioness, " do you call my two last 

 visitants the vulgar t " 



" They may have wit enough," says I, " but they never 

 reason at all. And your reasoners, who are a severe set of 

 people, will not make any dilliculty of sorting them with 

 the vulgar. On the other hand, these men of tire revenge 

 themselves by ridiculing the reasoners ; and think it is a 

 vei-y just principle in nature that every species despises 

 what it wants. It were right, if it was possible, to conform 

 ourselves to every species ; and it had been much better for 

 you to have rallied on the inhabitants of the jilanets with 

 your two friends, because they are better at raillery than 

 reasoning, which they never make use of. You had then 

 come off with their joint esteem ; and the planets had not 

 lost a single iuhabitaut by it." 



" Would you have had me," says she, " sacrifice the 

 truth to a jestf And is that all the conscience you 

 have?" 



" I own," answered I, " that I have no great zeal for 

 these kind of truths, and I will sacrifice them with all my 

 soul to the least conveniences of company. For instance, 

 I see what is, and always will be, the reason why the 

 opinion of the planets being inhabited is not thought so 

 probable as it really is. The jilanets always present them- 

 selves to our view as bodies which emit light ; and not at 

 all like great jilains and meadows. We should readily 

 agree that plains and meadows were inhabited; but 

 for luminous bodies to be so too, there is no ground 

 to believe. Reason may come and tell us, over and 

 over, that there are plains and meadows in these 

 planets ; but reason comes a day too late. One glance of 

 our eyes has had its effect before her ; we will not hear a 

 word she says ; the planets must be luminous bodies, and 

 what sort of inhabitants they should have, our imagination, 

 of course, would presently represent their figures to us. 

 It is what she cannot do, and the shortest way is to believe 

 there are no such beings. Would you have me, for the 

 establishment of these planetary people, whose interests 

 are far from touching me, go to attack those formidable 

 powers called Sense and Imagination 1 It is an enterprise 

 would require a good stock of courage, and we cannot 

 easily prevail on men to substitute their reason in the 

 place of their eyes. I sometimes meet with reasonable 

 people, who are willing, after a thousand demonstrations, 

 to believe that the planets are so many earths ; but their 

 belief is not such as it would be if they had not seen them 

 under a different appearance. They still remember the 

 first idea they entertained, and cannot well recover them- 

 selves from it. It is these kind of people who, in believing 

 our opinion, seem to do it a courtesy, and only favour it 

 for the sake of a certain pleasure which its singularity gives 

 them." . 



" Well, says the Marchioness, interrupting me, " and is 

 not this sufficient for an opinion, which is but barely 

 probable?" 



