CHARLES WATERTON, ESQ. lxi 



whilst the unfeeling conquerors of Troy were 

 in the act of throwing her poor boy Astyanax 

 over the battlements ! 



" Mittitur Astyanax, illis de turribus, unde," &c. 



I was invited to see in Florence a bird, a 

 mouse, and a piece of heart and liver, which by 

 a chemical process (only known to the in- 

 ventor) had become as hard as stone. I had 

 been given to understand, that I should find 

 the bird and mouse as perfect in their form as 

 when alive ; but upon examination, the ana- 

 tomy appeared shrunk and injured; the plumage 

 of the bird and the fur of the mouse were 

 wrong at all points, so that I left the room 

 with disappointment in my looks. Probably 

 corrosive sublimate had been the chief agent in 

 causing these substances to become so very 

 hard. 



Although I was much on the watch for birds 

 from Florence to Rome, I saw very few indeed ; 

 some dozens of coots on the waters, a heron or 

 two rising from the marshes, with here and 

 there a noisy blackbird rushing from the bush 

 on the road-side, and a scanty show of hooded 

 crows passing from tree to tree, were nearly all 



