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MISCELLANY. 
Winter, leave the inland woods, its usual haunts, and approach the sea-side in 
small flocks. —Patrick Hawkridge, Scarborough , Aug. 1837. 
Singular Variety op the Magpie. —A remarkable specimen of the Magpie 
was lately shot at Wath-upon-Dearne, by Wm. Addy. It was bred at Newhill 
Hall, the seat of John Payne, Esq., and is about eleven inches long, and stands 
eleven inches high. It is of a beautiful bright fawn-colour on the head, breast, 
wings, thighs, and tail, shaded to a bright brown on the dark feathers of the wing- 
coverts ; and the belly is of a cinereous white. The bill, legs, feet and claws are 
brownish-black, which another year would, no doubt, have made beautifully 
black ; and it is really to be regretted that its death was occasioned by its capture. 
•—Doncaster Gazette, Oct ., 1838. 
A Lion Scared by a Dreamer. —It happened on one occasion, a short time 
previous to our arrival amongst this tribe, that a young Boschman, in hunting a 
troop of Zebras, had just succeeded in wounding one of them with an arrow, 
when a Lion sprang out of an opposite thicket, and showed a decided inclination 
to dispute the prize with the hunter. The Boschman luckily being near a tree, 
dropped his arms, and climbed for safety, without a moment’s delay, to an upper 
branch. The Lion having allowed the wounded Zebra to pass on, now turned 
his whole attention towards the perching huntsman, and walking round and round 
the tree, he now and then growled, and looked up at him rather unpleasantly. 
At length the Lion lay down at the foot of the tree, and kept watch all night. 
Towards morning sleep overcame the hitherto watchful Boschman, and he dreamt 
that he had fallen into the Lion’s mouth. Starting from the effects of his dream, 
he lost his seat, and tumbling from the high branch on which he had been re¬ 
posing, came squash down upon the Lion’s ribs. The monster not being at all 
prepared for assaults of this description, bolted off with a tremendous roar, and 
the Boschman lost no time in taking to his heels in the opposite direction, scarcely 
believing the evidence of his senses.'— Sir James Alexander’s Discoveries in 
Southern Africa. 
BOTANY. 
Botanical Lectures at Cheltenham. —Mr. Edwin Lees delivered three 
lectures on Botany, in December, at the Cheltenham Literary and Philosophical 
Institution. We shall publish an account of them next month.— Ed. 
Cerastium arvense. —This plant has been observed this year, about the be¬ 
ginning of June, pretty abundantly, among the hedge-roots near the entrance to 
Lathrow, on the West side of the road between Milnathurt and Kinross. In 
England it is proverbially common, but it has not been detected generally in Scot¬ 
land, for in Hooker’s Floi-a Scotica only three stations are indicated—Kelso, Guil- 
