
250 
twelve shillings. The duty aforesaid is to be 
paid by the person keeping a dog, or having the 
same in his custody or possession, whether the 
same be his property or not, such person not dis- 
covering the owner thereof, ‘who shall have been 
duly assessed for the same. No person is to be 
chargeable with duty to any greateramount than 
‘£39 12s. for any number of hounds, or £9 for any 
number of greyhounds kept by him in any one 
year. The only exemptions to the tax are, a dog 
belonging to her Majesty,oranyofthe Royal Family, 
or a dog or whelp which at the time of returning 
the lists of dogs as required by the Act, shall not 
actually be of the age of six calendar months, or 
any dog bona fide ‘and wholly kept and used in 
the care of sheep or cattle, or removing the same, 
provided that no such dog shall be a greyhound, 
hound, pointer, setting dog, spaniel, lurcher, or 
terrier.—E. 
[We sincerely hope that the tax upon people 
who keep dogs, will be rigorously enforced. The 
number of snarling curs, (half starved, and more 
than half mad), that infest our streets, is perfectly 
abominable. ] 

Vegetable Lrfe—As long as a plant continues 
to vegetate, we say it lives. When it ceases to 
vegetate, we conclude that it is dead. The life of 
vegetables, however, is not so intimately connected 
with the phenomena of vegetation that they can- 
not be separated. Many seeds may be kept for 
years without giving any symptom of vegetation ; 
yet, if they vegetate when put into the earth, we 
say that they possess life; and, if we would speak 
accurately, we must say also that they possessed 
life even before they were put into the earth—for 
it would be absurd to suppose that the seed 
obtained life merely by being put into the earth. 
In like manner, many plants decay, and give no 
symptoms of vegetation during winter; yet if 
they vegetate when the mild temperature of 
spring affects them, we consider them as having 
lived all the winter. The life of plants then, and 
the phenomena of vegetation, are not precisely 
the same thing, for the one may be separated from 
the other, and we can even suppose the one to 
exist without the other. Nay, what is more, we 
can in many cases decide, without hesitation, that 
a vegetable is not dead, even when no vegetation 
appears, and the proof which we have for its life 
is, that it remains unaltered. For we know that 
when a vegetable is dead, it soon changes its 
appearance, and falls into decay. ‘Thus, it ap- 
pears, that the life of a vegetable consists in two 
things :—1. In remaining unaltered when circum- 
stances are unfavorable to vegetation. 2. In 
exhibiting the phenomena of vegetation, when 
circumstances are favorable. When neither of 
these two things happen, we may say that a 
vegetable is dead-—R. 
The Eyes of Birds—1 send you the following 
curious particulars of the eye of a bird. They 
are attributed to the observation of Lord 
Brougham :—‘‘A singular provision is made for 
keeping the surface of the bird’s eye clean—for 
wiping the glass of the instrument as it were, 
and also for protecting it, while rapidly flying 
through the air and through thickets, without 
a the sight. Birds are for these purposes 

ne 



KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
furnished with a third eyelid, a fine membrane or 
Skin, which is constantly moved very rapidly over 
the eyeball by two muscles placed in the back 
of the eyes. One of the muscles ends in a loop ; 
the other ma string which goes through the loop, 
and is fixed in the corner of the membrane, to 
pull it backward and forward. If you wish to 
draw a thing towards any place with the least 
force, you must pull directly in the line between 
the thing and the place ; but if you wish to draw 
it as quickly as possible, and with the most con- 
venience, and do not regard the loss of force, you 
must pull it obliquely, by drawing it in two direc- 
tions at once. Tie a string to a stone, and draw 
it towards you with one hand; then make a loop 
on another string, and running the first through 
it, draw one string in one hand, not towards you, 
but sideways, till both strings are stretched in a 
straight line; you will see how much more easily 
the stone moves quickly than it did before, when 
pulled straight forward.—Wiuiiam P. 

The Advantages arising from the Admission of 
Air to the Roots of Plants—The advantages of 
the admission of the air about the roots of a plant 
are not, apparently, sufficiently appreciated in this 
country. In the south of France, when vegetation 
does not advance satisfactorily, a gardener will go 
over his crops, stirring up the soil to a consider- 
able depth with some such tool as a little bigot. 
Indeed, the free admission of air to the ground is 
considered of so much importance, that hght rains 
are deprecated; hence, on an occasion when a 
market-gardener was congratulated on the grow- 
ing showers that had fallen im the night, he 
replied in a pet, “Bah! La pluie ne vaut rien 
pour les yardins.” He added, that rain hardens 
the surface of ground without reaching to the reots 
of plants; but that when water is let into the 
channels between beds in ridges, it goes straight 
to the roots of the plants on them without de- 
priving them of air. This observation may be 
applicable to the practice of watering gardens 
with the rose watering-pot or engine.—B. 

Habits of the Ostrich.—Knowing how inde- 
fatigable you are in penning down all that becomes 
known about that singular creature the ostrich, I 
send you the subjoined, copied from “ A Hunter’s 
Life in South Africa.”’—‘‘ We fell in with several 
nests of ostriches, and here I first ascertained a 
singular propensity peculiar to these birds. If a 
person discovers the nest, and does not at once 
remove the eggs, on returning he will most pro- 
bably find them all smashed. This the old birds 
almost invariably do, even when the intruder has 
not handled the eggs, or so much as ridden within 
five yards of them. The nest is merely a hollow 
scooped in the sandy soil, generally amongst heath 
or other bushes ; its diameter is about seven feet. 
It is believed that two hens often lay in one nest. 
The hatching of the eggs is not left, as is gene- 
rally believed, to the heat of the sun, but on the 
contrary, the ‘cock relieves the hen in her incu- 
bation. ‘These eggs form a considerable item in 
the bushman’s cuisine, and the shells are converted 
into water-flasks, cups, and dishes. I have often 
seen Bush-girls and Bakalahari women, who 
belong to the wandering Bechuana tribes ‘of the 
Kalahari desert, come down to the fountains from 


