MISCELLANEA. 651 
faction of our magician, who would, certainly, have been not a 
little embarrassed if his proposition had been accepted. 
All this being concluded, he lifted the boiler from the fire — 
took out the stones — poured away the water, and, seizing the 
charm, placed it in his pocket ; assuring them that its power 
was destroyed, and that the malady of the lambs was destroyed. 
Nothing remained for the credulous farmer, but handsomely to 
pay the performer of all these wonderful things. 
It may be supposed that the farmer and his friends were 
anxious to see what this fearful charm could be. It was simply 
a piece of wood, in the form of a cone, with some cabalistic letters 
and characters engraved upon it. 
The winter and spring of 1824 were very rainy — the ewes had 
been very badly fed — they had been pastured in low, marshy 
places, where the grass afforded but little nutriment ; and the 
milk being poor and serous, it produced a collicative diarrhoea, 
to which the lambs had fallen victims. 
A predisposing cause of this complaint was the immense 
quantity of dung which the sheep-house contained, and which 
rendered it exceedingly unhealthy. 
These circumstances, separately or united, were the cause of 
this enzootic ; but when the weather changed, and the atmo- 
sphere was no longer charged with humidity, and the nourish- 
ment of the ewes being more abundant and of better quality, the 
mortality ceased. 
Mem. de la Soc. Vet . du Calvados, tom. ii, p. 387. 
The dead Donkey. 
“ They mourn me dead in my father’s halls.” 
He was stretched at full length beside the ditch where he 
died. 
A half-finished house in the background seemed to rejoice in 
the fate of the poor animal ; maliciously displaying a board, 
whereon was lightly written “This Carcase to be Sold.” 
The sturdy thistle reared its head in his vicinity, fearless of the 
donkey’s pluck. 
The crows, like a lot of lawyers at the funeral of a rich man, 
were hovering near. They threatened to engross the whole skin, 
and make away with the personal property by conveyance. 
The deceased, they knew, could not resist their charge, nor 
did they apprehend their bills would be taxed by the master. 
Alack ! Alack ! that he who had carried many a bushel 
should thus fall beneath their peck! The well-worn saddle 
