calls her chickens to their food by her cluck, and drives them from danger by her scream.

Birds have the greatest variety of notes; they have, indeed, a variety, which seems almost sufficient to make a speech adequate to the purposes of a life which is regulated by instinct, and can admit little change or improvement. To the cries of birds, curiosity or superstition has been always attentive; many have studied the language of the feathered tribes, and some have boasted that they understood it.

The most skilful or most confident interpreters of the sylvan dialogues have been commonly found among the philosophers of the east, in a country where the calmness of the air, and the mildness of the seasons, allow the student to pass a great part of the year in groves and bowers. But what may be done in one place by peculiar opportunities, may be performed in another by peculiar diligence. A shepherd of Bohemia has, by long abode in the forest, enabled himself to understand the voice of birds-at least, he relates with great confidence a story, of which the credibility is left to be considered by the learned :

"As I was sitting," said he, "within a hollow rock, and watching my sheep that fed in the valley, I heard two vultures interchangeably crying on the summit of the cliff. Both voices were earnest and deliberate. My curiosity prevailed over my care of the flock-I climbed slowly and silently from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs, till I found a cavity where I might sit, and listen without suffering or giving disturbance.

"I soon perceived that my labour would be well repaid; for an old vulture was sitting on a naked prominence, with her young about her, whom she was instructing in the arts of a vulture's life, and preparing, by the last lecture, for their final dismission to the mountains and the skies.

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My children,' said the old vulture, 'you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowl, you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with prey. But you re

member the taste of more delicious food-I have often regaled you with the flesh of man.” Tell us,' said the young vultures, 'where man may be found-how he may be known: his flesh surely is the natural food of a vulturewhy have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest?' 'He is too bulky,' said the mother. When we find a man we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground.'

Since man is so big,' said the young ones, how do you kill him?-you are afraid of the wolf and of the bear; by what power are vultures superior to man? Is man more defenceless than a sheep?' We have not the strength of man,' returned the mother: 'I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtlety; and the vultures would seldom feed upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our use, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other being that

feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet and shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are surely destroying one another; you will find the ground smoking with blood, and covered with carcases, of which many are dismembered and mangled for the convenience of the vulture !' But when men have killed their prey,' said the pupil, 'why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he is satisfied himseif. Is not man another kind of wolf?' 'Man,' said the mother, is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a benefactor to our species.' 'If men kill prey, and lay it in our way,' said the young one, 'what need shall we have of labouring for ourselves?' 'Because man will sometimes,' replied the mother, 'remain for a long time quiet in his den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving close together, like a flock of storks, you may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human blood.' But still,' said the young one, I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter-I could never kill what I could not eat.'

Carpathian rocks; he had made many observations: he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly between the rising and setting of the summer's sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of men. His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really vegetables with a power of motion; and that as the boughs of an oak are dashed together by the storm, that swine may fatten upon falling acorns; so men are by some unaccountable power, driven one against another, till they lose their motion, that vultures may be fed.

Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous beings; and those that hover more closely round them, pretend, that there is, in every herd, one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage. What it is that entitles him to such pre-eminence we know not-he his seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shews, by his eagerness and diligence, that he is, more than any of the others, a friend to the vultures.'

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It has been the received opinion that the sun was fire, burn ing and heating other bodies in like manner as a culinary fire but the celebrated Dr. Fordyce has asserted, that the sun is probably not at all hot in itself; neither are the solar rays hot, but have only a power of producing heat (caloric) on being applied to other bodies. An opinion very little different to this, is entertained by Dr. Herschel. This ingenious astronomer asserts, that the idea of the sun being a body of real fire, is futile and erroneous. He supposes, on the contrary, that it is an opaque body, surrounded by an atmosphere of a phosphoric nature, composed of various transparent and elastic fluids, by the decomposition of which, light is produced, and lucid appearances formed of different degrees and intensity. The doctor even goes so far as to assert, with much probability, that the sun is in reality an inhabitable world. Some forcible reasoning, with the authority of demonstration, given by the doctor in support of his suppositions.

are

It is a constant rule, with regard to hot bodies, that they heat all cold bodies which come near them. Though it must be allowed that some bodies will receive heat with more readiness than others: however, this will not easily form an objection to what immediately follows.

Now, if we take a large burning glass, and hold a piece of iron in its focus, such heat will be produced as to melt the iron. But the glass, through which all the rays passed, is scarcely heated at all: and when they fell on the iron they were no hotter than

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water when it is poured on vit» riolic acid. But if we place wa ter, which is perfectly transparent, in the focus, no heat will be produced: nay, if spirits of wine were placed in the focus, they would scarcely be heated. But the same heat which melts iron would more than suffice to make water boil. From this experiment then, without advancing farther arguments, it appears that the rays in themselves have no heat; and there is no reason to suppose that the sun is hotter than the earth we inhabit, &c.

The sun's rays heat bodies only when they are bent or destroyed(the term absorbed does not, in my opinion, exactly answer the purpose)-hence they do not heat water if perfectly transparent; neither do they heat the air above the clouds; at least, as very little bending takes place in these cases, the heat is so trifling as to be scarcely worth mentioning: the upper regions of the air then are extremely cold, though exposed to the direct action ofthe sun.

Heat, it is affirmed, can only be produced by the solar rays at the surfaces of bodies; consequently the interior can only be heated by communication. And, if we keep in mind, that heat is more readily transmitted, communicated, and received, by some bodies than others, it will then appear that, as a body receives heat with more facility, it will be more heated by the sun's rays— as a piece of iron will be more heated than a piece of wood.

We have seen then, that the solar rays are not hot in themselves that they produce heat only when they are bent or destroyed-that therefore they do not heat transparent bodies, nor

do they heat in passing through them, but only at their entrance, and passing out again, &c.

The different distances of the planets from the sun, it is imagined, makes a great difference in the number of the rays, and in the momentum with which they fall on them: so that it has been thought that Mercury is exceedingly hot, and Georgium Sidus cold beyond conception.

But

since the heat produced in bodies depends on their disposition to receive it, the several planets may be so composed as to have but a very trifling difference in the heat produced by the solar rays. Hence then, what has been hitherto said concerning the heat of the planets, as calculated on the supposition of the sun being the source of heat, may be called in question.-Less. Astro. and Philo.

Whether heat be a substance or a quality, it is manifest that it may be created and annihilated. Now we have no idea of matter

being created and annihilated by any natural cause, (for under all its variety of forms matter is matter still;) then what kind of a substance must heat be, to be produced and destroyed by so many causes! Why, truly, nobody can tell, for it must have a property which matter has not. Heat must then be a quality, for qualities we know can easily be created and annihilated. And if heat be a quality it must have matter to exist in, so that if we apply any of the causes producing heat, no heat is produced unless there be some matter to produce it. This therefore is the result of enquiries into the nature of heat.-Ibid.

Agreeably to the foregoing hypothesis, caloric, or heat, does not descend from the sun to the earth; that the solar rays are not hot in themselves, that they heat bodies only when they are bent or destroyed: hence there is no "impartation of caloric by sun to earth."

It happened, that the learned Patru, who was no less remarkable for his necessities than his great learning, being tormented by his creditors, determined, at length, to sacrifice his books to his own ease and their satisfaction. His library, therefore, was exposed to sale. Mr. Boileau heard of this circumstance, and repairing to his house, made a purchase of the whole. A few hours after, he sent Mr. Patru a letter, by which he acquainted him, that he had a great favour to request of him, and would not be refused; which

Natchez had an altercation with one of his countrymen and bit him severely in the hand; the latter declared himself maimed, and demanded the usual combat. The day is fixed; the tribe assemble; the champions advance, the offended man armed, the offender without arms; both painted of different colours. They approach each other running, and stop at fifteen paces distance. The man without arms uncovers his breast. His adversary rests calmly on his musket, drinks some draughts out of his gourd, aud looks around. All on a sudden he utters a cry, takes aim at his enemy, fires, and hits him. While the offender is weltering in his blood, the other reloads his musket, presents it to the son of his dying adversary, retreats some paces, points with his finger to the place where the heart is seated, and receives the mortal wound. In all such cases it is necessary that both the champions perish.

ORIGIN OF THE CORONER'S INQUEST.- A gentlewoman in London, after having buried six husbands, found a gentleman hardy enough to make her a wife once more. For several months their happiness was mutual; a circumstance which seemed to pay no great compliment to the former partners of her bed, who, as she said, had disgusted her by their sottishness and infidelity. In the view of knowing the real character of his amorous mate, the gentleman began frequently to absent himself, to return at late hours, and, when he did return, to appear as if intoxicated. At first, reproaches, but afterwards menaces, were the con

The

sequence of this conduct. gentleman persisted, and seemed every day to become more addicted to his bottle. One evening, when she imagined him to be dead drunk, she unsewed a leaden weight from one of the sleeves of her gown, and, having melted it, she approached her husband, who pretended still to be sound asleep, in order to put it into his ear through a pipe; convinced of her wickedness, the gentleman started up, and seized her; when having procured assistance, he secured her till the morning, and conducted her to prison. The bodies of her six husbands were dug up, and, as marks of violence were still discernible upon each of them, the proof of her guilt appeared so strong upon her trial, that she was condemned and executed. To this circumstance is England indebted for that useful regulation, by which no corpse can be interred in the kingdom without a legal inspection.

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In a company of naval officers, the discourse happened to turn on the ferocity of small animals; when an Irish gentleman present stated his opinion to be, that a Kilkenny cat, of all animals, was the most ferocious; and added--"I can prove my assertion by, a fact within my own knowledge: I once," said he, saw two of those animals fighting in a timber yard, and willing to see the result of a long battle, I drove them into a deep saw-pit, and placing some boards over the mouth, left them to their amusement. Next morning I went to see the conclusion of the fight, and what do you think I saw ?". ---" One of the cats dead, probably," replied one