Not] AND SYMBOLS. 247 



quite unconcerned. It continues to move about in this manner 

 until it comes close to a fly, when it springs upon the luckless 

 insect, trounces it in its claws, and carries it off like a falcon 

 with a partridge. Nonchalance is always a very successful 

 stratagem when a piece of cunning business is to be performed. 

 A prejudiced judge who desires to snatch a verdict ; an un- 

 scrupulous stockbroker who is eager to sell some worthless 

 scrip ; a horse-coper who means to dispose of a " screw ; " a 

 pickpocket in a crowd all understand as well as the Mellinus 

 arvensis the unspeakable value of nonchalance as a means to 

 the accomplishment of their designs. H. 



Nothing New under the Sun. 



When tracts of forest-land are cleared of the timber, as often 

 happens in North America, and occasionally in our own country, 

 the following season there springs up in abundance, where the 

 trees stood previously, some pretty herbaceous plant that was 

 quite unknown there while the trees existed, and which had 

 been patiently "biding its time." The explanation of such 

 curious appearances is perfectly simple. The herbaceous plant, 

 whatever it may be, had occupied the ground when there 

 were no trees there, forming some kind of herbage or meadow, 

 and letting fall its annual progeny of seeds. In course of time 

 trees have sprung up, their own seeds conveyed thither either 

 by human agency, or by one or other of the wonderful con- 

 trivances of Nature which ensure propagation whether man give 

 his aid or not. These trees have offered too dense a shade for 

 the herbaceous plant, which retires, as it were, into private life ; 

 but when they in their turn are cut down, the original plants 

 return, covering the surface with the old imperishable carpet. 

 The earthy crust of our planet appears to be stocked in every 

 part with seeds that have been produced in years gone by, 

 scattered upon the surface, and subsequently covered up with 

 soil. Whenever the ground is disturbed, either by the plough 

 or by the spade of the railway excavator, or for any purpose 

 which causes its depths to be overturned, that position which 

 was many feet below being thrown to the surface, and exposed 

 to the air, the sunbeams, and the moisture of dew and rain, 



