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ARTS AND SCIENCES OF ANIMALS.
Bees are Geometricians. Their cells are
so constructed as, with the least quantity of
materials to have the largest sized spaces and
the least possible loss of interstices.
So also is the Ant-Lion. His funnel-shaped
trap is exactly correct in its conformation as
if it had been formed by the most skilful art
its of our species, with the aid of the best in
struments.
The Mole is a Meteorologist,
The bird called Nine Killer is an Arithmeti
cian; so also are the Crow, the Wild Turkey,
and some other birds.
The Torpedo, the Ray, the Electric Eel, are
Electricians.
The Nautilus is a Navigator. He raises
and lowers his sails, casts and weighs anchor
and performs other nautical evolutions,
Whole tribes of birds are Musicians.
The Beaver, is an Architect, Builder, and
Wood-cutter. He cuts down the trees, and
builds houses and dams.
The Marmot is a civil engineer. He not
only builds houses, but constructs aqueducts
and drains to keep them dry.
The white Ant maintains a regular army of
soldiers.
The Marmots are Agriculturists. They
cut down grass and make it into hay.
The East India Ants are Horticulturists. —
They raise mushrooms, upon which they
feed their young
Wasps are paper Manufacturers.
Catterpillars are silk spinners.
The bird Ploceos Textor is a Weaver, He
weaves a web to make his nest.
The Prima is a Tailor. He sews the leaves
together to make his nest.
The Squirrel is a Ferryman; with a chip
or a piece of bark for a boat, and his tail for
a sail, he crosses a stream.
Dogs, Wolves, Jackals, and many others
are Hunters.
The Black Bear and the Heron are Fisher
men.
The Ants have regular day laborers.
The Monkey is a Rope-dancer.
Os Governments. The association of Bea
vers presents us with a model of Republican
ism.
The Bees live under a Monarchy.
The Indian Antelope furnish an example
of patriarchial Government.
Elephants exhibit an aristocracy of elders.
Wild Horses are said to elect their leader.
And Sheep in the wild state, are under the
control of a military chief ram.
JOB DODGE, OR THE STORMY DAY.
It was a half drizzling, half stormy day in
the middle of November —just such a day as
puts nervous people in a bad humor with
themselves and every body else. Job Dodge
was brooding ovei the tire immediately after
breakfast. His wife addressed him as fol
lows :
“Mr. Dodge, can’t you mend that front
door-latch to day ?”
“ No,” was the answer.
“ Well, can’t you mend the handle of the
water pail ?”
“No.”
“Well, can’t vou fix a handle to the mop'?”
“No.”
“Well, can’t you put up some pins for the
clothes, in your'chamber?”
“No.”
“Well, can’t you fix that north window, so
that the rain and snow won’t drive in ?”
“No, no, no,” answered the husband sharp
ly. He tten took his hat, and was on the
point of leaving the house, when his wife,
knowing that he was going to the tavern,
where he would meet some of his wet-day
companions, asked him kindly to wait a mo
ment. She then got her bonnet and cloak,
and said to her husband, “ You're going to
the tavern; with your leave I will go with
you.” The husband stared. “Yes,” said
the wife, “I may as well go as you: if you
go and waste the day at the tavern, why shall
1 not do the same?”
Job felt the reproof. He shut the door;
hung up his hat; got the hammer and nails ;
did all his wife had requested, and sat down
by the fire at night, a better and happier
man.
FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.
One day the Caliph Hassan, son of Hali be
ing at table, a slave unfortunately let fall a
dish of meat reeking hot, which scalded him
severely. The slave fell on his knees re
hearsing those words of the Koran, “ Para
dise is for those who restrain their anger.”
“ I am not angry with thee.” answered the
Caliph.
“And for those who forgive offences against
them,” continues the slave.
§ ® unr a&&sa&,ait sisa i& ©a asmns.
“I forgive thee thine,” replied the Caliph.
“But, especially, for those who return good
for evil,” adds the slave.
“1 set thee at liberty,” rejoined the Caliph,
“ and I give thee ten dinars.”
Will not this Mahometan rise up in judge
ment, and condemn many who call themselves
the followers of the merciful Jesus ?
ORIGIN OF GREAT MEN.
Columbus was the son of a weaver and a
weaver himself.
llabelias was the son of an apothecary.
Claude Lorraine was bred of a pastry cook.
Moliere was the son of a tapestry maker.
Cervantes w r as a common soldier.
Homer was the son of a small farmer.
Demosthenes was the son of a cutler.
Terence was a slav e.
Oliver Cromwell was the son of a brewer.
Howard was an apprentice to a grocer.
Franklin was a journeyman printer, son of
a tallow chandler and soap boiler.
Dr. Thomas Bishop of Worcesler was the
son of a linen draper.
Daniel Defoe was a hosier, and son of a
butcher.
Whitefield was the son of an Inn-keeper at
Gloucester.
Sir Cloudesly Shovel, rear admiral of Eng
land, was an apprintice to a shoemaker and
afterwards a cabin boy.
Bishop Prideau worked in the kitchen at
Exeter College, Oxford.
Cardinal Wolsey was the son of a butcher.
Ferguson was a sheperd.
Dean Tucker was the son of a small farm
er in Cardiganshire, and performed his jour
nies to Oxford on foot.
Edmund Halley was the son of a farmer at
Ashleh de la Zouch.
Lucian was the son of a maker of statua
ry-
\ irgil was the son of a porter.
Horace was the son of a shop-keeper.
Shakespeare w r as the son of a wool stap
ler.
Milton was the son of a money scrivener.
Pope was the son of a merchant.
Robert Burns was the son of a ploughman
in Ayrshire.
1 ■ i
The Practical and the Beautiful.—
From a report in the Taunton Whig of a
witty lecture before the Lyceum of that town
by Peleg W. Chandler, Esq., we extract the
following passage :
Do not decry scholarship—the fountain of
the past is not dry, it will yet be the nurse of
a nobler time. Bend your ear to the choral
hymns of Sophocles, attune your voice to the
Ciceronean strain. Do not disparage the
frieze of the Parthenon by pointing to the
Thames Tunnel, and hinting of its practical
ity—this is the method of ignorance, the trick
of a shuffler. It is this spirit that has made
your architecture a cross between a Greek
lemple and a Yankee barn.
> mm
A Jolly Life. —lnsects generally must
lead a truly jovial life. Think what it must
be to lodge in a lily! Imagine a palace of
ivory or pearl, with pillars of silver and cap
itals of gold, all inhaling such a perfume as
never arose from human censer! Fancy, a
gain, the fun of tucking yourself up for the
night in the folds of the rose, rocked to sleep
by the gentle sighs of summer air, nothing to
do when you awake but to w T ash yourself in
a dew-drop, and fall to and eat your bed
clothes !
Proverbs Refined. — A cat may look at a
king, is a short homily calculated to check
the arrogance of high rank. This derogatory
axiom is modernised by—“ Royalty may be
contemplated with impunity even by a feline
quadruped.”
There is a historical apothegm to the ef
fect that Rome was not built in a day , which
fact is communicated to us by Miss Hill in
the sonorous period:—“ The capital of the pa
pal states was not constructed in a diurnal
revolution of the globe.“
The concise adage that Old birds are not
caught with chaff is sententiously paraphrased
by the axiom—“ Experienced warblers are
rarely made prisoners by the husks of grain.”
—.>
A good man —Areal Christian —seldomsees
a defect in his neighbor. A pure lake reflects
the beautiful sky, the clouds, and the over
hanging trees, but when it is ruffled it reflects
nothing that is pure. A bad man—a real
scoundrel seldom sees a good trait in the char
acter of his neighbor. An imperfect glass re
flects nothing correctly, but shows its own
deficiency. A perfect mirror reflects nothing
but bright and pure images.
(Tracts of £nnn’L
THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.
Conceive yourself placed on a mountain
nearly two thousand feet above the valley,
and nine thousand above the level of the sea.
A sky above you of the most perfect azure,
without a cloud, and an atmosphere so trans
parently pure, that the remotest objects at the
distance of many leagues are as distinctly visi
ble as if at hand. The gigantic scale of ev
erything first strikes you —you seem to be
looking down upon a world. No other moun
tain and valley view has such an assemblage
of features, because nowhere else are the
mountains at the same time so high, the val
ley so wide, or filled with such variety of
land and water. The plain beneath is exceed
ingly level, and for two hundred miles around
it extends a barrier of stupendous mountains,
most of which have been active volcanoes,
and are now covered some with snow, and
some with forests. It is laced with large
bodies of water looking more like seas than
lakes—it is dotted with innumerable villages,
and estates, and plantations; eminences rise
from it which, elsewhere, would be called
mountains, yet there, at your feet, they seem
but ant hills on the plain ; and now, letting
your eye follow the rise of the mountain to
the west (near fifty miles distant,) you look
over the immediate summits that wall the val
ley, to another and more distant range—and
to range beyond range, with valleys between
each, until the whole melts into a vaporry
distance, blue as the cloudless sky above you.
I could have gazed for hours at this little
world while the sun and passing vapor che
quered the fields, and sailing oft’ again, left
the whole one bright mass of verdure and wa
ter —bringing out clearly the domes of the
village churches studding the plain or leaning
against the first slopes of the mountains, with
huge lakes, looming larger in the rarefied at
mosphere. Yet one thing was wanting. Over
the immense expanse there seemed scarce an
evidence of life. There were no figures in
the picture. It lay torpid in the sunlight,
like some deserted region where nature was
again beginning to assert her empire—vast,
solitary, and melancholy. There were no
sails—no steamers on the lakes, no smoke
over the villages, no people at labor in the
fields, no horsemen, no coaches, or travelers
but ourselves. The silence was almost su
pernatural ; one expects to hear the echo of
the national strife that filled these plains with
discord yet lingering among the hills. It was
a picture of “still life,” inanimate in every
feature, save where, on the distant mountain
sides, the fire of some poor coal-burner mingl
ed its blue wreath with the bluer sky, or the
tinkle of the bell of a solitary muleteer was
heard from among the dark and solemn pines.
[ Mayers Mexico as it was and as it is.
1 M i
AN EATING MATCH.
In one highly important particular, the
Yakuti may safely challenge all the rest of
the world. They are the best eaters on the
face of the earth. Having heard a great deal
more on this subject than I could bring my
self to believe, I resolved to test the thing by
the evidence of my ow r n senses. Having
procured a couple of fellows, who had a tol
erable reputation in this way, from a village
about twenty verts distant, I had a dinner
prepared for them of two poods of beef boil
ed, and one pood of butter melted, being thir
ty-six pounds averdupoise of the former, and
eighteen of the latter, for each of the two.
Os the solids the performers had their respec
tive shares placed before them, while the li
quor was in common, with a ladle for drink
ing it. Os the operatives, the one was old,
and the other young. The former, as if he
had been training himself into nothing but a
! stomach from head to heel, had his skin
hanging in loose folds over his gaunt bones;
while the latter, who showed no external
symptoms of extraordinary capacity, must
have relied chiefly on the vigor of youth and
j a willingness of disposition.
At starting the young fellow shot ahead,
j as if he meant to distance his friend, while
the old man, waggishly making his wrinkles
flap again upon him, said, “ His teeth are
j sharp; but,” continued he, crossing himself,
i “ with the help of my saint, I shall be up
i with him yet.” After a good dose of the
| beef they greased their throats for the second
j beat of the race by swallowing much about
1 a pint or so of their heavy wet'. At the end
of an hour they had got through half of their
welcome toil, my senior guest having, by this
time, shaken out nearly his last reef. Their
i eyes were starting from their heads, and their
stomachs projecting into a brace of kettle
! drums. What were the gentlemen to do
with the remaining half of their allowance ?
One moiety of the question might have been
easily answered; for ihe butter, apparently
in its purity, was making an outlet of every
pore; but, as the solids could not escape so
glibly from the premises, the problem of
stowing away eighteen pounds of beef, when
already full to overflowing, puzzled mv
knowledge, such as it was, of practical math
ematics.
Feeling that, whatever might be the case
with my guests, I had myself had quite e
nough of the feast, I left our Cossack and
Mr. M’lntyre to see that there should be no
foul play in getting rid of the meat and drink *
and, on returning about two hours afterward T
I was assured by my deputies and others
that all was right, while the gluttons them
selves tacitly confirmed the testimony b\
wallowing prostrate on the earth, relieving
me, at the same time, from all sense of wrong
in the matter by thanking me for my liberali
ty and kissing the ground reverently for my
sake. After such surfeits the victors remain,
for three or four days, in a state of stupor,
neither eating nor drinking ; and, meanwhile,
they are rolled about, somewhat after the
manner of the tumee hmiee of the Sandwich
Islands, with a view to the promoting of di
gestion, an operation which the slipperiness
of their surface renders peculiarly difficult.
Two of these gormandizers, one for the bride
and another for the bridegroom, form part of
the entertainments at every native wed
ding.—Simpson's Overland Journey Round
the World.
af Sun.
OBEYING ORDERS.
While lying in a Southern part some years
since, the master of the vessel belonging to
New England smoked her out for the purpose
of destroying rats. Th . next morning about
a dozen of these long-tailed gentry were found
and brought on deck. Their fat and sleek ap
pearance evinced that they had been well
cared for by themselves, if not by others. The
steward came aft, and pointing to the heap,
inquired of the captan what should be done
with them.
“ Done with them?” responded the captan„
who was something of a wag, “why, make
them into a stew.”
Nothing more was said by either party on
the subject at the time. Several gentleman
had been invited on board to dine upon
squirrels, which the captain and a friend, who
was a good marksman, had “barked” the day
before. Dinner was served up in good style
and the appetites of all did justice to the fare;:
but most of the party preferred them made into
a stew to any other way.
“ Steward,” exclaimed the captain, as he
was changing the dishes preparatory to setting
on the pastry, “ can‘t you give us just such a
stew to-morrow? you know there are some
of the squirrels left.“
“Didn‘t make dat out ob squirrels, sir,“re
plied the African, with a hesitating attempt to
smile, but which was kept back by a slight
tremor.
“What then?” inquired the captain quickly.
“ Why sir, ob de rats, as you ordered me to." 1
Revenge Extraordinary. —“A wag hav
ing had a dispute with a man who kept a sau
sage shop, and owing him a grudge, ran into
his shop one day as he was serving several
good customers, with an immense dead cat,
which he quickly deposited on the counter,
saying, “This makes nineteen; as you are
busy now, we’ll settle another time :” and he
was offin a twinkling. The customers, aghast,
soon followed him, leaving their sausages be
hind
A Sharp Youth at a Bargain.— “ Sally,
said a green youth in a venerable white hat
and grey pants through which his legs pro
jected half a feet, perhaps more, —“Sally-’
afore we go into this ere Museum to see the
Enchanted Horse, I want to ask you some
thing. “
“Well Ichabod, what is it.”
“ Why, you see this ere buisness is agvvine
to cost a quarter a-peice, and I can’t aftord to
spend so much money for nuth’n. Now, A
you say you'll have me darn’d es I don’t pay
the hull on't myself. 1 will, pos-sitiv-vily-”
Sally made a non-committal reply, which
Ichabod interpreted to suit himself, and he
strode up two steps at a time, and paid down
the “hull on’t.”
The following is a Frenchman’s defi
nition of a Broker:
Ah! me make von discoverie. Vat is
raison vat fore de peepelle call de agent bro
kair ■ It is bekose ven de persone have biz’
ziness wid him he become broke ?