THE CONNKXIQiX OF ELECTRICITY 
fi06 
Sir Peter Laurie asked if an importation from Spain had been 
expected ? 
Mr. Venables said, certainly not, on account of the length of 
the voyage ; but they came in good condition for killing. No 
foreign meat, however, was equal to our own. 
Sir Peter Laurie said he had recently visited Belgium and 
Holland, and to him the cattle thereabout seemed to be in excel- 
lent condition. 
Mr. Venables said, that what we had received from that quar- 
ter was certainly very fine. 
Sir Peter asked what reduction had been effected in the price 
of meat? 
Mr. Venables replied a halfpenny a pound. Prices would never 
rise above the present level, and it was clear they must go lower 
in a year or eighteen months. Large quantities of American salt 
pork was coming in. It was a very superior article, and the sale 
would be extensive. At the Barnet Fair just closed no cattle 
could be sold but at a reduction of £3 a head on the last year’s 
prices. On the last day of the fair 22,000 cattle remained un- 
sold ; while on the same day of the last year not one head re- 
mained unsold as early as two o’clock. 
Sir Peter asked what would become of the unsold beasts. 
Mr. Venables said they would be driven about to other fairs, 
and sold at the same reduction of three pounds per head. The 
graziers were suffering now, but, ultimately, the landlords must 
bear the loss. 
THE CONNEXION OF ELECTRICITY WITH THE 
INCUBATION OF BIRDS. 
By R. Hill, Esq., Spanish Town, Jamaica. 
14 Naturalists - have remarked,” observes Mr. Hill, 44 that, 
in tropical countries, there are a greater number of birds that 
build close nests than in the temperate climate of Europe. In the 
West Indian Islands, with the exception of the pigeon tribes and 
the humming-birds, the nests are almost uniformly circular cover- 
ings of dried grass, varied by intermingled cotton, moss, and fea- 
thers, with an opening from below, or an entrance at the side. 
The Banana-bird weaves a hammock of fibres, sometimes of horse- 
hair, deep and purse-like, and loosely netted ; the muscicapa oli- 
varea , a hanging cot of withered leaves, straw, moss, fibrous 
threads, and spiders’ webs, fitted together ; and the mocking-bird 
builds, in the midst of a mass of wicker work, a neat nest of 
