IGO 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
and the muscular fibre, when examined under the micro¬ 
scope, is found to be sodden and ill-defined.— British Medical ^ 
Journal. 
The Cuttle-Fish as Food. —We now come to a class 
of animals which, but for the unreasonable prejudice of 
our fishermen and the poor generally, might, in the absence 
of better diet, afford them a large supply of cheap and 
nourishing food, viz. cuttle-fish. Cuttle-fish of various 
kinds form the staple diet of the fishermen of France and 
Italv, and verv wholesome nourishing food it is. But the deni- 
zens of our own coasts, from silly prejudice, would rather starve 
than eat them, and, in sinful waste, they leave many tons^ 
weight yearly to rot upon the shore, or to be carted away as 
manure—and this sometimes in the face of the dire necessity 
which so often overtakes the poor fishermen in bad, wintry 
weather. The main thing upon which their foolish antipathy 
to these animals is founded, is the presence of the wonderful 
ink-bag wdth which they are endowed, as a mode of defence 
against their enemies. Quite as rational w'ould it be to object 
to eat the flesh of oxen or sheep because they possess a gall¬ 
bladder, or that of the cod because the fish has an oily liver. 
—Scientific Opinion. 
Loss BY Insect Depredations. — The A^nerican Entomolo¬ 
gist asserts that taking one year with another the United States 
suffers a loss from the depredations of the insect tribe to the 
amount of 300,000,000 dols. annually. This seems an enor¬ 
mous amount, but when we consider the number of enemies 
w hich vegetation has in the bug or insect family, and the 
rapidity w ith w hich each creature saps the life of a plant, or the 
fruit which it produces, the sum,large as it is, will not be deemed 
an extravagant one. Alluding to these insect depredators, 
The Entomologist says : “ Turn them which w’^ay they w'ill, the 
agriculturists and horticulturists of the Northern States are 
met by plant lice, bark lice. May bugs, rose bugs, weevils, 
cut w’orms, caterpillars, palmer worms, canker worms, slug 
worms, and leaf rollers; and at periodic intervals the worm 
army marches over their fields like a destroying pestilence; 
while in Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota, and the more 
w esterly parts of Missouri and Iowa, the hateful grasshopper, 
in particular seasons, swoops down with the western breeze 
in devouring swarms from the Rocky Mountains, and like 
its close ally, the locust of Scripture and of modern Europe, 
devours every green thing from off the face of the earth.^^ 
Philadelphia has taken steps to import a thousand English 
sparrows, which will be let loose in the public squares and 
parks next spring. 
