

KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
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brain, the blood is diverted from its proper course, 
viz., to the stomach, at the time when it is more 
particularly required there to enable the viscus to 
secrete aud supply a sufficiency of gastric juice. 
Such patients cannot be benefited, except they alter 
their habits; because, so long as they force the cur- 
rent of blood towards the brain, when the vital fluid 
is required elsewhere for the purpose of digestion, 
this function will be impaired, and but very imper- 
fectly performed. Consequently, nervous derange- 
ment will continue to result.—Dawson, 

Vocal Machinery of Birds.—It is difficult to 
account for so small a creature as a bird making a 
tone as loud as some animals a thousand times its 
size. It has become known that in birds the lungs 
have several openings, communicating with cor- 
responding air bags or cells, which fill the whole 
cavity of the body, from the neck downwards, and 
into which the air passes and repasses in the pro- 
gress of breathing. This is not all. The very 
bones are hollow; and from these, air-pipes are 
conveyed to the most solid parts of the body, even 
into the quills and feathers. This air being rarefied 
by the heat of their body, adds to their levity. By 
forcing the air out of the body, they cau dart down 
from the greatest height with astonishing velocity. 
No doubt the same machinery forms the basis of 
their vocal powers, and at once solves the mystery. 
—Rosa B. 

Nature and Art ;—or, How to Make Flowers 
Bloom.—Take of sulphate of ammonia, a quarter 
of a pound ; nitrate of potash (common nitre), two 
ounces; moist sugar, one ounce; boiling water, 
one pint. Mix well together. All the ingredients 
are soluble in water. When cold, the mixture is 
ready for use. For plants near their flowering 
time, either in pots or the open ground, add a few 
drops to the water that is used to moisten them. 
For hyacinths in glasses, add from five to ten drops 
of the mixture to the water in which each bulb is 
growing; changing the water in the hyacinth- 
glass about once a fortnight. It acts, of course, as 
a stimulant to the plant, and, as such, care must 
be taken not to use too much of it; otherwise 
the flowers would be “ cut off in their bloom.”— 
Jane KE. 
Bees on Laurels—My attention has been 
called to a subject on which I shall be very glad 
if some reader of our JournaL will give mea 
little information. I have observed lately great 
numbers of bees flying round the laurel shrubs, 
apparently to obtain from them some product or 
other. On watching their movements, I dis- 
covered that they invariably resort to three or 
four small punctures on the under-surface of the 
leaf, near the base, from which they appear to 
extract something for their use. What I wish 
to find out is, what causes these punctures ?—they 
may be found in every young leaf—and then, 
what is it which the bees obtain from them? If 
any one can answer these queries, he will greatly 
oblige—A Consranr READER. 

Realisation of the Beauties of Arabian Scenery. 
—Dr. Layard observes, in his new work, that the 
glowing descriptions he had so frequently received 
from the Bedouins of the beauty and fertility of 


the banks of the Khabour were more than realised. 
The Arabs boast that its meadows bear three dis- 
tinct crops of grass during the year. On reaching 
the Khabour, the travellers pitched their tents on 
the right bank, near Arban—an artificial mound 
of irregular shape, from the summit of which “the 
eye ranged over a level country bright with flowers, 
and spotted with bright tents, and innumerable 
flocks of sheep and camels. During our stay at 
Arban, the color of these great plains was under- 
going a continual change. After being for some 
days of a golden yellow, a new family of flowers 
would spring up, and it would turn, almost in a 
night, to bright scarlet, which would as suddenly 
give way to the deepest blue. Then the meadows 
would be mottled with various hues, or would put 
on the emerald green of the most luxuriant pas- 
tures.”—Rosa B. 
Compulsory Vaccination—By the bill as 
amended, to extend and make compulsory the 
practice of vaccination, it is very properly pro- 
posed to enact that the father or mother of every 
child born in England or Wales, after the Ist of 
August, 1853, shall, within three months after 
birth, cause it to be taken to the medical officer 
of the place and vaccinated; unless the same 
shall have been previously vaccinated by some 
qualified medical practitioner. The Medical 
Times says—‘ The proportion of deaths from 
small-pox in London is three times, and in 
Glasgow six times, what it isin Brussels, Berlin, 
or Copenhagen. Of each thousand persons who 
die in England and Wales, twenty-two die of 
small-pox. Of each thousand persons who die 
in Ireland, forty-nine die of small-pox; while of 
each thousand persons who die in Lombardy, two 
only die of small-pox. The proportionate 
mortality, then, from small-pox, in Hngland and 
Wales is eleven times, and in Ireland twenty-four 
times greater than it is in Lombardy. Whence 
comes this difference? In England those who 
please take their children to be vaccinated ; in 
Lombardy vaccination is compulsory. The pro- 
portionate mortality from small-pox in England 
and Wales, is three times greater than what it is 
in any country in which the inhabitants are com- 
pelled, by law, to have their children vaccinated. 
These are great facts. In our metropolis, one 
thousand persons die annually of small-pox; if 
vaccination were compulsory, it is indisputable 
that the number of deaths from this disease, in 
London, would be reduced to two or three hundred 
per annum. rom six to eight hundred persons 
thus die yearly in the metropolis alone, whose 
lives might be saved by an Act of the Legislature. 
That a Vaccination Extension Bill should be 
before Parliament ; that all should be agreed on 
the propriety of legislating anew on this impor- 
tant subject, is then, considered in the abstract, 
matter for rejoicing.” —Rosert M. 
Are Cochin-China Hens good Mothers ?—It 
has been the fashion to run down the natural 
instinct of these good-tempered, affectionate 
animals ; and a report has gone abroad, that they 
desert their offspring when they are a week old, 
&c.! This is pure calumny. I have a hen, sir, 
that hatched eleven chickens, more than three 
months ago. ‘These chickens are now fine, noble 


