KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



379 



all drowned, as were also several of those 

 belonging to the third. The latter, as if aware 

 of the probable fate of the others, took them 

 away and hid them; and although the mamma 

 has been carefully watched, it has been hitherto 

 to no purpose. Their hiding-place, even now, 

 is an impenetrable mystery. — J. G., Dorchester. 



[We have heard of cases similar to the above, 

 but are glad to receive a confirmation of their 

 truth. Nature certainly is marvellous in her 

 doings.] 



Cats without Tails ; whereby " hangs a tale.'" — 

 I have much pleasure in answering an inquiry 

 made by your Correspondent relative to a race 

 of cats without tails, one of which is stated in 

 your Journal to have belonged to a clergyman 

 of the name of Neville, residing at the village 

 of Shepscombe, near Painswick, Gloucester- 

 shire. Having myself lived many years in that 

 locality, and possessed one of the said tailless 

 cats, I can give you every particular on the 

 subject. Mr. Neville first brought a kitten 

 without a tail, from the Isle of Man. She became, 

 on her growing up, the parent of a numerous 

 progeny. One of her kittens was given to my 

 mother; and a more gentle, affectionate, amiable 

 little quadruped, never acquired the affections of 

 a household. Her fur was light tortoiseshell, and 

 remarkably soft. She was somewhat more deli- 

 cately-formed than many of her grimalkin neigh- 

 bors ; and as regards her tail, it was about half an 

 inch long, — merely a little tuft. But we did not 

 observe that the want of that natural rudder pre- 

 vented her from running in a straight line,or climb- 

 ing trees most admirably. Her movements were 

 remarkably graceful, and cat-like, in all respects; 

 and I never observed in her actions, or mode of 

 progressing, the slightest similarity to those of 

 the rabbit family. One or two of her young ones 

 were nearly, if not quite without tails ; but these 

 we did not keep. Occasionally, she had long- 

 tailed kittens. No relationship whatever between 

 the occupants of the warren in Ebworth Park, 

 and my feline friend (of whom I speak), ever 

 existed ; her mother, as I have just mentioned, 

 came from the Isle of Man. In the Zoological 

 Gardens were exhibited a few years since, several 

 unfortunate tailless prisoners. The cage which 

 contained them was marked " Manx Cats." It 

 may be, that the same captives still look ruefully 

 through the wires of their prison-houses, but of 

 this we cannot speak with certainty. — M. R. 



JBlackbeetles and Cockroaches. — Dear Mr. 

 Editor, your recipe for the destruction of these 

 pests of the " lower house," is admirable. I have 

 tried it ; and it has cleared the premises already ! 

 Out of many thousand nightly intruders, not one 

 is now to .be seen. — Priscilla E. — Let me also 

 enlighten your readers as to another way to get 

 rid of blackbeetles, &c. An infallible mode of 

 destroying them, is to strew the roots of black 

 hellebore on the floor at night. Next morning, 

 the whole family of beetles and cockroaches will 

 be found either dead or dying ; for such is their 

 avidity for the poisonous plant, that they never 

 fail to eat of it when they can get it. Black hel- 

 lebore grows in marshy grounds. It may be had 

 at all herb shops. — Barbara S. 



A Mass of Interesting Facts. — Observing how 

 busy your fair readers are, in providing you 

 weekly with curious and interesting facts in 

 Natural History, let me too be (pleasingly) 

 pressed into your service, and add my mite to 

 the rest. I have, from time to time, entered the 

 subjoined in my " Note Book." It will delight 

 me to see it now entered in yours : — Man has 

 the power of imitating almost every motion but 

 that of flight. To effect these, he has, in matu- 

 rity and health sixty bones in his head, sixty in 

 his thighs and legs, sixty-two in his arms and 

 hands, and sixty-seven in his trunk. He has 

 also, 434 muscles. His heart makes sixty-four 

 pulsations in a minute; and therefore 3,840 in an 

 hour, 92,160 in a day. There are also three 

 complete circulations of his blood in the short 

 space of an hour. In respect to the comparative 

 speed of animated beings and of impelled bodies, 

 it may be remarked that size and construction 

 seem to have little influence — nor has compara- 

 tive strength: though one body giving any quan- 

 tity of motion to another is said to lose so much 

 of its own. The sloth is by no means a small 

 animal, and yet it can travel only fifty paces in a 

 day; a worm crawls only five inches in fifty 

 seconds ; but a lady-bird can fly twenty million 

 times its own length in less than an hour. An 

 elk can run a mile and a half in seven minutes; 

 an antelope a mile in a minute ; the wild mule of 

 Tartary has a speed even greater than that; an 

 eagle can fly eighteen leagues in an hour; and a 

 Canary falcon can even reach 250 leagues in the 

 short space of sixteen hours. A violent wind 

 travels sixty miles in an hour; sound 1,142 

 English feet in a second.— If you think these 

 matters " useful," say so, and I will live and die 

 in your service. You cannot think with what 

 inexpressible delight I look forward for Satur- 

 days. — Eleanor T., Cheltenham. 



[Let us be equally candid, fair Eleanor. "We 

 also long for Saturdays; and feel real pleasure 

 in believing that our weekly visit all over the 

 country on that day, is hailed with a hearty wel- 

 come. Continue your kind and friendly offices, 

 we entreat you. Mental food, and wholesome 

 instruction, is what we delight in ; and we are 

 trying hard to make others like it also. Thanks, 

 a hundred times multiplied.] 



A Time for Everything — I am aware, Mr. Editor, 

 that I am on delicate ground, when asking your 

 patient hearing on a subject not immediately re- 

 cognised as a leading feature in your paper. 

 However, I feel sure you will jfor once give way 

 to me, while I tell you how pleased I was to notice 

 your passing remarks at page 321, on the evil 

 produced by the indiscriminate promulgation of 

 so-called religious tracts. I am, like yourself, an 

 unceasing advocate for doing good at every op- 

 portunity ; and I am sure you will agree with me, 

 that all time occupied for other purposes than the 

 benefit and well-being of our fellow-creatures, is 

 time mis-spent. It were greatly to be wished, that 

 instead of printing up in these little tracts hun- 

 dreds of promiscuous passages of Scripture, ill- 

 arranged, and many of them tending to contradict 

 each other, some plain narrative involving a moral 

 were devised. Treatises like these would then not 

 only be perused without being ridiculed, but they 



