a, sting ha'ving been fatal to a, lady accustomed to the management 

 of bees. Any person who has this idiosyncrasy had better give bees 

 a wide berth. 



"I Deskiyee." — Fage 44. — There was evidently a taste of Milesian 

 blood in this learned doctor. "Ks fortunate that it was so, for 

 "discover" and "liver" would not rhyme. 



"Beekbkbkbx, Coax, Coax, 



" Coax, Coax, Bebkekbkbx."— Pa^e 46. 



Is the refrain of the weU-kuown chorus in the Frogs of Aristo- 

 phanes. Any one with an accurate ear, who has been so happy 

 as to assist at a chorus of Bull Frogs in full song in the sweet 

 spring tide, sacred to love and melody, must have felt how accu- 

 rately the great Comic Poet noted down their song. I do not believe 

 that in the two thousand years which have elapsed since that time 

 there has been a single note altered in their love ditty. I have 

 never been in Greece, and so cannot testify to the musical powers of 

 the Frogs of Boeotia ; but I have had that pleasure both in Spain and 

 in the neighbourhood of Constantinople : in both instances under very 

 favourable circumstances, which I will relate. In June, 1855, during 

 the Crimean war, I was at Constantinople, the guest of Lord Napier, 

 then Chief Secretary to the British Embassy in that city. He was 

 residing at that lovely place, Therapia, the summer retreat of our 

 Ambassador and his suite. I had pitched my little tent in a grass 

 meadow, close to Lord Napier's snug house. His hospitality by day 

 was unbounded, but straitened as he was for room by night, he was 

 not sorry to entertain a guest who delighted in camping out, and 

 brought with him the means of doing so. Not fifty yards from my 

 tent was a dark stagnant pool, overshadowed by trees, and every 

 night and all night long the BuU frogs, from their reedy habita- 

 tions, sang " Brekekekex, Coax, Coax," whilst above the water, and in 

 and out of the dark shadows of the trees, the fire flies flickered 

 about in their ever varyilig gambols. It was as though Taglioni, re- 

 splendent with Jewels, had been dancing her very best to the strains 

 of a Scotch bag-pipe. Again, I was in the noble town of Seville 

 at Easter, 1867, twelve years later, during which time I had been 

 hard at work in England, and "no holiday had seen," so by that 

 time I needed one. Not a hundred yards from the glorious Cathe- 

 dral, behind the Alcazar, the old Palace of the Moors, is a large 

 orange garden, and in the midst of it a square tank, of Moorish work, 

 used for irrigation. The garden was tenanted by a. widow woman 

 who owned a dozen or so magnificent stall-fed mOch cows, and 



