XIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



123 



a bitch, which having been accidentally shut up 

 alone in a country house, existed for forty days 

 without any other nourishment than the stuff on 

 the wool of a mattress which she had torn to 

 pieces. A crocodile will live two months with- 

 out food, a scorpion three, a bear six, a chameleon 

 eight, and a viper ten. Vaillant had a spider 

 that lived nearly a year without food, and was 

 so far from being weakened by abstinence, that 

 it immediately killed another larger spider, 

 equally vigorous but not so hungry, which was 

 put in along with it. John Hunter enclosed a toad 

 between two stone flower-pots, and found it as 

 lively as ever after fourteen months. Land- 

 tortoises have lived without food for eighteen 

 months ; and a baker is known to have kept a 

 beetle in a state of total abstinence for three 

 years. It afterwards made its escape. Dr. 

 Shaw gives an account of two serpents, which 

 lived in a bottle without any food for five years. 

 — I could add largely to these facts, but it is 

 unnecessary. I wish you could prevail upon 

 the Booksellers in the country to procure your 

 Journal earlier. Sometimes it does come 

 down — sometimes it does not ! — Sophia, 

 Reading. 



[We publish, early everyWednesday morn- 

 ing — our Journal, bearing the date of the 

 following Saturday. We cannot do more than 

 we have done ; and regret with you that " bad 

 is the best ! " We must go-a-head, even though 

 it be slowly. Thanks for your kind favor.] 



" Forget~me~Not." — Will you, my dear Sir, be 

 so obliging as to tell me the origin of the lovely 

 flower, the "Forget-me-not?" I have heard 

 it, but it has escaped my memory. — Isabel. 



[The origin of this universally-beloved flower 

 — so dear to us all that we have it engraved on 

 our seals, is given in " Mills' History of Chi- 

 valry." It was first discovered, or noticed in 

 England, in the time of Edward IV. : — " Two 

 lovers were loitering along the margin of a lake, 

 on a fine summer's evening; when the maiden 

 discovered some flowers growing in the water, 

 close to the bank of an island at some distance 

 from the shore. She expressed a desire to possess 

 them ; her knight, in the true spirit of chivalry, 

 plunged into the water, and swimming to the 

 spot, cropped the wished-for plant. But his 

 strength was unable to fulfil the object of his 

 achievement; and feeling that he could not regain 

 the shore, although very near it, he threw the 

 flowers on the bank ; and casting a last affection- 

 ate look on his lady-love, said — ' Forget-me- 

 Not!' and was buried in the water!" A lovely 

 legend this! endearing our favorite to us more 

 than ever. No flower so delights us. When we 

 use it, as a seal. — it says for us, very often, what 

 we dare not say for ourselves ! It is indeed a 

 most powerful " advocate."] 



Fertility of Animals — the Rein-deer. — I find 

 the following, Mr. Editor, in Dr. LyelVs Geology — 

 " As an example of the rapidity with which a 

 large tractmay become peopled by the offspring of 

 a single pair of quadrupeds, we may mention that, 

 in the year 1773, thirteen rein-deer were exported 

 from Norway, only three of which reached Iceland. 

 These were turned loose into the mountains of 



Guldbringe Syssel, where they multiplied so 

 greatly, in the course of forty years, that it was 

 not uncommon to meet with innumerable herds 

 consisting of from forty to a hundred, in various 

 districts." In Lapland, observes a modern 

 writer, the rein-deer is a loser by his connections 

 with man, but Iceland is this creature's paradise. 

 There is in the interior, a tract which Sir G. 

 Mackenzie computes as not less than forty thou- 

 sand square miles, without a single human habi- 

 tation, and almost entirely unknown to the natives 

 themselves. There are no wolves ; the Ice- 

 landers will keep out the bears; and the rein- 

 deer, being almost unmolested by man, will have 

 no enemy Avhatever, unless it has brought with it 

 its own tormenting gadfly. To this, we might 

 add the known fertility in England of rabbits, 

 hares, pigs, pigeons, &c, whose offspring, if not 

 destroyed, would soon over-run the entire 

 country. — William B. 



The Ship-worm. — There are some very curious 

 particulars, Mr. Editor, connected with this sin- 

 gular creature — particulars that ought to appear 

 in our Journal. Though the animals of some 

 of the land-shells, as the snails, do him some 

 injury in his garden, man seldom suffers very 

 materially from their ravages; but the ship- 

 worm, where it gets head, does him incalculable 

 injury, destroying piles as far as they are under 

 the water, and everything constructed of timber 

 that is placed within their reach, to which they are 

 as injurious as the boring woodlouse; they even 

 attack the stoutest vessels, and render them unfit 

 for service. Their object, however, is not to 

 devour the timber, but, with the same view that 

 the pholads bore into the rock, to make for them- 

 selves a cell in which they may be safe from their 

 enemies; their food is probably conveyed to 

 them in the sea-water. The mode in which 

 these animals bore, has not been ascertained — 

 probably it is by the rotation of their valves. Sir 

 E. Hpme describes them, as protruding a kind of 

 proboscis which has a vermicular motion, and 

 which he supposes to act as a centre-bit while the 

 creature is boring. The shells, by means of their 

 ridges, probably act like those of the pholads, as 

 rasps. They bore in the direction of the grain 

 of the timber, deviating only to avoid the track 

 of others. Did an animal, with the boring 

 powers of the ship-worm, says Kirby, enter our 

 rivers and abound there, we should see the mag- 

 nificent bridges that so much adorn our metro- 

 polis, and are so indispensable to its inhabitants, 

 gradually go to ruin ; the vast stones with which 

 they are built might become the habitation of 

 pholads, and other rock borers, and the com- 

 munication between the two sides of the river 

 greatly interrupted. But a merciful Providence 

 has so limited the instincts of the different ani- 

 mals it has created, that they cannot overstep a 

 certain boundary, nor extend their ravages 

 beyond the territory assigned to them. The 

 study of these wonders of creation, Mr. Editor, 

 must surely make mankind better — else must 

 their hearts be " hard" indeed. I agree with 

 you, quite, that the " world " is good; but alas ! 

 not its inhabitants ! — Mary G., Nottingham. 



[We are told, we have hosts of " friends" re- 

 siding at Nottingham. How is it that we only 



