east window. I moved it as directed: no, it must have a decidedly north aspect. I moved it again: no, he could not touch a single morsel, unless he had his back to the wall. At length, and after spending an hour in tableturning, when I had placed it exactly where it had originally stood, Mr Sutas expressed himself as satisfied, and presently assured me that he had never enjoyed a meal so thoroughly. On another occasion, he demanded that the head of our favourite black cat should be delivered up to him: the animal had met him on the stairs, and deliberately looked at him, which he averred was a most dire foreboding. When the First Floor happened one day to be unusually merry, he bade me go up with his kindest regards, and bring him word what they were laughing about; and at another time he terrified a young gentleman of that party to extremity, by threatening to hang him over the lintel of the door, if he should venture to whistle again. He got very troublesome towards last, and mother was the only person who could manage him. She exercised quite a parental influence, and often reduced him even to tears. There was a good deal of fuss about this, and some envious people called her "Kimbo the keeper;" just as if dear Mr Sutas was mad even his mode of departure, they said, was a proof of it as though people of fortune might not travel as they liked-because he had always averred that carriage-exercise shook him to pieces--and yet went away in a spring-cart with four horses, and blowing a horn.'

There are many other biographies, of equal if not greater interest in Miss Martha's diary, which would have made out Mrs Kimbo's case perhaps better, and bear something more of a refutation of the charges brought against her class; but at the termination of the volume I came upon some statements, interspersed with horizontal lines, which, I could not conceal from myself, referred to me. From that instant I determined to perform my duty as an upright critic, rather than as an editor with a partial leaning; and if my private opinion is desired, I pity Mr Sutas, I admire Bundlecum, and I positively revere Mr Poppet's mother-in-law.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

GERMAN YEAST.

THIS kind of yeast has become an important article of importation, and continues to make rapid progress as such, without appearing to draw the attention of speculators in this country towards its home manufacture. The fact is the more extraordinary that this substance does not keep long enough to render it a safe importation: when a slight detention at sea, for instance, occurs, the cargo heats so rapidly that it is sometimes necessary to throw it overboard. The same peculiarity prevents its diffusion much further than the districts into which it is brought from abroad, as the expense of railway carriage for any considerable distance would be too great; and thus, while all Yorkshire,' as we are informed, uses it, supplied by Hull, and the counties around the metropolis are equally favoured by London, other important parts of the country are cut off from the advantage. Leeds consumes eight tons a week, and Bradford five, at Sd. per pound; but in Scotland its use is greatly restricted.

German yeast appears to be nothing more than common distillery yeast, freed by a certain process from its impurities, and more especially from the acidity which has frequently a detrimental effect upon bread. A correspondent has been so obliging as to send us the details of this process, which he obtained through inquiries made in the south of Germany, where the manufacturers had not the same interest as

their brethren in the north in preserving the secret. We now present it to our readers, in the hope that the experiment will be extensively tried in this country, where the numerous whisky distilleries offer facilities for almost everybody to obtain the best possible yeast at his own door.

"Take brewery, or, by preference, distillery yeast,' says our informant, and filter this through a muslin or silk sieve, into a tub or vat containing about four or five times the quantity of soft or cold spring water. The water must be as cold as possible, and in summer, ice should be dissolved in it. As soon as the liquid yeast comes into the water, the whole must be well stirred up-in preference with a broom-until thoroughly mixed, and it has a good foam or light head; then leave it until quite settled and the water becomes clear; then draw the surface-water gently off, so as not to disturb the settled substance.

The tub should have cocks at different heights, to allow the water to be drawn off gently by opening the highest first. This done, you again pump the tub full of cold water, and stir it up again: let it settle, and draw off as before; and repeat this operation until the water becomes tasteless and clear-that is, till the water has cleansed the yeast of all its bitterness.

"Then add to the settled substance, for every twelve gallons of yeast employed at the commencement, half an ounce of carbonate of ammonia, and one ounce of bicarbonate of soda, previously dissolved in a pint of cold water: mix this liquid with the purified yeast, and leave it in this state for the night, or twelve or fourteen hours.

Then pump cold water again into your tub, stir it well up as before, and when settled, draw it off, which concludes the purifying process.

This done, the yeast in its settled state must be emptied into a clean linen bag, tied up, and placed between two boards large enough to cover the bag, so as to press the liquid substance out, which must be done as gently as possible, till the substance is gradually freed from water, and resembles bread-paste or dough, which can then be formed to size and weight as needed. In Austria, the weight is something near one pound when dry, in square forms, and about one inch thick.

"The whole process should be conducted in a very cool place; and when once the pressed yeast has become partially dry, it should be kept in a cold place, as otherwise the yeasting process will begin; whereas, kept in a cold place, it will keep for from eight to ten days in summer, and from ten to fifteen in winter, but not longer in Austria.'

BOG-BUTTER.

We have all read about manna, and bread-fruit, and vegetable wax and tallow, and edible birds' nests, but only a few have read about bog-butter. Nine-tenths of the community would be puzzled to tell you what it means. Let us see if we cannot make it the subject of a few minutes' reading.

For a beginning, we go back to the year when the nation mourned the death of Mary, consort of William III. In November 1695, a resident at Kilkenny, writing to a friend of his, says, among other matters: 'We have had of late, in the county of Limerick and Tipperary, showers of a sort of matter like butter or grease; if one rub it upon one's hand, it will melt, but lay it by the fire, and it dries and grows hard, having a very nasty smell. And this last night some fell at this place, which I did see myself this morning. It is gathered into pots and other vessels by some of the inhabitants of this place.'

This passage is published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; and with it an extract from a letter written by the Bishop of Cloyne in April of the following year, in which the worthy

churchman remarks: For a good part of last winter and spring, there fell in several places a kind of thick dew, which the country-people called butter, from the consistency and colour of it, being soft, clammy, and of a dark yellow. It fell always in the night, and chiefly in moorish, low grounds, on the top of the grass, and often on the thatch of cabins. "Twas seldom observed in the same places twice: it commonly lay on the earth for near a fortnight without changing its colour, but then dried and turned black. Cattle fed in the fields where it lay, indifferently, as in other fields. It fell in lumps, often as big as the end of one's finger, very thin and scatteringly; it had a strong, ill scent, somewhat like the smell of church-yards or graves: and indeed we had, during most of that season, very evil-smelling fogs, some sediment of which might possibly occasion this dew; though I will by no means pretend to offer that a reason of it. I cannot find that it was kept long, or that it bred any worms or insects; yet the superstitious country-people who had scald or sore heads, rubbed them with this substance, and said it healed them.'

The good bishop is cautious in his 'reason.' He tells us the butter 'fell;' but perhaps this was only a figure of speech, as we say the dew falls. It has long been known that a species of tallow can be extracted from bogs; and it may be that the lumps had other origin than the atmosphere. But leaving this phenomenon, let us look at something that is more immediately connected with the subject.

In 1736, there was dug up somewhere in Finland a singular mass, which was called 'mineral tallow.' The learned and curious were greatly puzzled to account for it, and put forth their theories. In 1817, another mass, weighing twenty-three pounds, was discovered in a bog on the Galtee Mountains in Ireland-another puzzle. What did it mean, coming upon a substance that resembled butter or tallow, in such a place? Three years later, another find occurred on the borders of Loch Fyne in Scotland; and in 1826, still another in Ireland, in a bog near Ballinasloe. This latter weighed twenty-one pounds, and was presented to the Royal Dublin Society, and described in their Proceedings. Since then, many more specimens have been found: some are in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, and others in private hands. Some of these have been carefully analysed; and they all give up those peculiar oily acids which are found in butter.

In these cases, the explanation is easier than in that of the bishop's clammy dew. Mr Wilde states, as reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, that it was the practice formerly among the Irish to bury their butter, probably with a view to its preservation. Some of the old writers allude to it, and the Irish Hudibras mentions

Butter to eat with their hog,

Was seven years buried in a bog.

All the specimens found present the same physical and chemical character-'a hard yellowish white substance, like old stilton cheese, and in taste resembling spermaceti-it is, in fact, changed into the animal substance denominated adipocere.' And most of them have been met with in old solid bogs, at a depth of ten or twelve feet. They are nearly always enclosed in wood, some in long firkins of small diameter, others in receivers scooped from a single block. Whether they were deposited near the surface, and have since sunk, or the bog has grown over them, are questions to which Irish savans are trying to find an answer. Mr Wilde suggests as a clue that when the common fosses of Paris, into which a great number of bodies had been thrown in 1793, were opened a few years ago, it was found that the substance into which they had been converted was an adipocere, somewhat resembling this bog-butter.'

In the analyses, no traces of salt have been discovered; and it appears to have been the custom to make the butter without salt in former times, and eat it only when it became rancid or sour; and these qualities would be developed by the burial. An old book of travels in Iceland states that the peasantry used to eat sour butter, and that each bishop's see had a public store, in which the butter was kept against years of scarcity.

In Debe's Description of the Faröe Isles (1670) there is a passage bearing on this curious subject, which we quote by way of conclusion. The natives had what they called ‘rue tallow,' or 'preserved tallow,' obtained from the carcasses of sheep. It was, after the process of rendering, cast into large lumps, and then, says the writer, 'they dig and put it in moist earth to keep itit growing the better the longer it is kept-and when it is old, and is cut, it tasteth like old cheese. The most able peasants have ever much endeavoured to bring together a great quantity of that tallow, so that! a countryman had sometimes in the tallow-dike-that is, a place in the earth where it is kept-above 100 loads, and this hath always been looked upon as the greatest riches of Feröe. For when sheep dye, such tallow is very necessary in the land, the longer it is kept being so much the better; and forreign pyrates having little desire to rob it from them. It may, therefore, not unreasonably be termed a hidden treasure which rust doth not consume, nor thieves steal away.'

THE STORY OF AN ANCIENT

MARINER'S FIRST LOVE.

SIR JOHN Ross, the well-known navigator, is dead. He lived to be nearly eighty years of age; and within the last five months, I heard him tell the story of his first love. Thus it came about. We were wont to meet him at the house of a mutual friend, where he was always a welcome guest; came and went as he listed, and had his hammock swung in a chamber where the temperature suited him best; for he loved a cold clear atmosphere. In a word, he was the centre of as charming a household group as shall be seen any day in the great metropolis. Blooming faces shone upon him, merry songs greeted him as he took his place beside the cheery hearth in those cold evenings in spring. One bright-haired creature with rosy lips claimed him ever as her own, seated him beside her on the velvet couch, called him 'her dear boy,' which delighted the ancient mariner beyond all things, and at last drew from him the tale referred to.

I had been reminding him of a very old friend now dead, and of whom he had heard nothing for many years as I spoke, a tide of early recollections swept up and filled the old man's eyes with tears. 'Ah!' said he, he was a very kind friend to me; we had been schoolmates, and then we went to sea together. After a while we parted, and I entered the royal navy; when I next saw O- I was commander on board the He was on the quay at Greenock when I sailed in, and little thought that the vessel carrying a royal pennant was commanded by Johnnie Ross. I landed and went up to him with a man who knew us both.

"O," said the latter, "do you remember little Johnnie Ross ?"

"Well," answered O-; " and a precious little scamp he was!"

'On this,' observed Sir John, we shook hands, and renewed our acquaintance, and I had reason to be glad of it; for,' he repeated, 'O was very kind to me.'

'Now about Margaret,' said the bonny creature beside him.

'Ah! she was a noble girl! When I first knew her she was ten, and I about twelve years old. We used to walk home together from the school, and at first were very happy; but before long the children began to watch us, and we were obliged to make signs to one another about meeting. I mind well how shamefaced we were when the others caught us making signals before breaking up; and one day the master saw us, and it was on that occasion Margaret shewed such spirit and courage as made me never forget her.'

'I had got out of school,' he continued, after a short pause, and was waiting for her, never heeding the children laughing at me, as I stood watching for the sight of her bonny face, for she was very fair.' I can by no means describe the pathos of the old man's tone as he said this. When I began to think she was in trouble, and "kept in," I hid myself till the place was clear of ither folk, and then I creepit round and keeked in at the window of a side-room where scholars in disgrace were put sometimes. Poor Margaret was indeed there, sitting upon a box, very forlorn, and crying bitterly. She brightened up at seeing my face in the window-pane, and smiled when I told her I had been waiting for her. Then I declared I would be revenged on our hard master, and went at once to the school-room to carry out my plan: this was easy, for

there was no one there.

'Just over the master's desk was a shelf, on which stood a large ink-bottle, and near to this again was the hat with which the dominie always crowned himself when he assumed the seat of authority. I mounted the desk, took a piece of string from my pocket, tied the ink-jar and hat together, then, descending from my perch, left the room, and ran round again to the side-window to prepare Margaret for the result of my device. Then I ran home to dinner, and returned to

school in the afternoon.

'I was late. All the children were in the room; and at the master's desk stood Margaret, with scarlet cheeks but triumphant eyes, just receiving the last blow of the leather strap on her open hand. The punishment of my mischievous revenge had been visited upon her. Streams of ink discoloured the master's face; and books and desk, on which last lay the broken ink-jar, were saturated with it. The master himself was furious; and the more so that Margaret had borne the infliction like a heroine, in perfect silence, resolutely refusing to give up the name of the delinquent, whose accomplice she was accused of being. She looked at me as she moved defiantly away, and the expression of her eye warned me not to speak. It was observed; Margaret walked proudly after me; and for the last time we took our way home together from the

indeed too late. I hurried from the room before I was

school.'

He and Margaret met but twice afterwards. He

dwelt most on the first of these meetings. 'I was travelling,' he said, 'in Scotland, when the coach stopped to take up a passenger. The moment the door opened, I knew her at once, but-she didna remember me;' he sighed as he said this. "Then,' he continued, I told her who I was, and reminded her of old times, thirty years before, and of that story of the ink-bottle and the beating she had got for my sake. She had mother of a large family, is now an aged woman, and almost forgotten it, but I never had.' Margaret, the probably thought little of Johnnie Ross after parting with him in childhood; while he, literally voyaging from pole to pole, and having but a passing glimpse of her from time to time, may be said to have carried the memory of his child-love to his grave.

Among other pleasant records of my life will rest the memory of many an ancient story,' told in his eightieth year, by Sir John Ross. Some modern ones there were, too, in which pathos and bathos were exquisitely blended. There was one of the discovery at sea, by the Isabella, of himself and his shipmates. He had once commanded this ship, and he knew her immediately, half blind with weakness and starvation as he was; and there was another of his meeting in London with his son, who, through good report and find a place in these pages, but that I think it would evil report, had never given him up.' These might be unfair to trench upon the domain of whomsoever shall be selected as editor of the autobiography which Sir John was occupied in compiling up to the last few weeks of his eventful life.

I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
I've borne a weary lot;

But in my wanderings, far or near,
Ye never were forgot.

The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way;
And channels deeper as it rins

The luve o' life's young day.

He said all this, and much more than I can do justice to. The whole picture of the twa bairns-twa bairns and but ae heart'-rose before me, as, blushing, frightened, and silent, they 'cleekit thegither hame' after school.

INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON HEALTH. [This brief paper is an abstract of an excellent lecture on the

Ladies on Practical Subjects (Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. 1855). These lectures were delivered at the Working-men's College in London, by a group of men each highly accomplished in his particular subject; and we scarcely know a volume containing more sterling good sense or a finer expression of modern intelligence on social subjects. The particular lecture here condensed was by Dr Chambers, physician to St Mary's Hospital.]

IT is a mistake to think that the ill-health found in so many trades is a component part of them, or that those engaged in one occupation must necessarily be shorterlived, or suffer more physically, than those of another. If we inquire closely into the matter, we shall find that every single instance of ill-health arising from the different trades may be fully accounted for by some breach of the simple laws of nature, and that the evils are capable of a remedy so cheap and attainable, that it would be impossible for

them to add appreciably to the expense of the article produced; so that, by preventing the sickness of the artisan, it would be the greatest saving to the masters, and to society at large.

Printers engaged in composing by gas-light, as is required in the short days of winter, sometimes have their vision injured a very natural consequence of standing with the gas flickering naked just over the head, and in front of the workman. The eye thus receives a blaze of light thrown directly upon it, which it does not want, and which blinds it so much, that the blaze must be increased in order to illuminate the form at which the compositor works. It seems almost incredible that a man should lose his eyesight for the want of a sixpenny gas-lamp, or a penny shade, to keep the glare off his brow, and throw it on to his work. This, indeed, seems monstrous; yet such is the case; for on inquiry at some of the principal printingoffices where such appliances are used, it is found that none of their compositors suffer from eye-complaints. Needlewomen's eyes suffer very often, too, from gutta serena—that is, a loss of sensibility in the optic nerve, from overstrained use in feeble persons. The cause of the needlewoman's malady is too obvious. It is well known that in all great milliners' establishments it is a rule that all light-coloured work shall be done during the day, and that dark or black work shall be done after dark. They find that, from bad ventilation, the droughtiness and closeness of the rooms, and ignorant mode of illumination, the fireplaces, or candles, or gas will smoke, smuts fly about, and soil the light-coloured fabrics; while, on the other hand, instead of removing the obstacle, by getting better ventilation and better lighting, the employers insist upon those dark colours alone being exposed to the dirt, where no great harm is done by a little stain. By the simplest rules of ventilation, the milliners' eyes and health might be preserved, and they might also be enabled to work light-tinted fabrics by night.

I do not here allude to the evil effects of overwork; that is too long a question to enter into now; but you must draw a distinction between that and unhealthy sorts of work. Watchmakers, jewellers, grinders, sculptors, masons, stone-breakers, &c., are liable to suffer from affection of the eyes. But there is a remedy perfectly simple for all of these. Why should a person ever break stones without a pair of wire-spectacles, that may be got for sixpence? or masons and sculptors the same? Those who are liable to get grains of metal into the eye-as jewellers, railway guards, grinders, and the like-why not have a syringe at hand, and a little water, to wash the lids? The harm of dusty trades, from which millers often suffer, may And always be prevented by a thorough draught of air. there are many ways of arresting the evils of iron dust, and preventing it from blocking up the lungs. The diseases prevalent among bootmakers and tailors might often be avoided or remedied by a very slight observance of the laws of nature! The former might keep their health very well, if they would give up the foolish habit of pressing the boot-tree against the pit of the stomach, and adopt instead a similar contrivance to the admirable one invented by Mr Sparkes Hall, bootmaker in Regent Street, of an upright bench at which a man can either stand or sit at his work without pressing the boot-tree

against his body. And the tailor, with a very little perseverance, might learn to use one of the many tables that have been designed for his use, without ruining his digestion by assuming the constrained position of crossing his legs, and resting his heavy work upon his knees. Every remedy is in itself simple; and it does not require any great depth of learning or study to acquire the necessary knowledge. A true insight into the elementary laws of life, so as to know correctly what living, breathing, feeling, perspiring, moving, eating, drinking, resting, sleeping, really are, so far as is at present known, is all that is required.

I do not mean, when I speak of elementary knowledge, that it needs be superficial; sound elementary knowledge is the furthest removed from superficial of any that can be communicated. Indeed, the more perfect and further advanced a science is, the more capable it is of having its

first and most valuable principles imparted in an elementary easy form.

I am sure that the comprehension of the main organic principles of animal being-the science called physiology— may be placed in the power of all. When once cast into a form capable of being imparted as a part of education, there is no reason why physiology should not stand on the same footing as reading, arithmetic, and grammar. I fear that unless we make more general a knowledge of physiology-of health and disease-very little good can be done by merely philanthropic interference. Ignorance in the interferer and interfered with will always weaken such efforts, and the well-intended energy will be wasted. But first acquire a correct notion of the first principles of this science, and your daily life will continuously add the details of further knowledge; and rules of health, which now, if they seem merely disconnected opinions, will end in seeming a matter of course, from being united in one ¦¦ universally applicable law of common sense.

An observation lately made by Professor Tennant is worth repeating, from the very simplicity, but obvious Ile observed that the labels utility of the suggestion. in our museums were not sufficiently communicative. It composition, colour, hardness, specific gravity, and other is not enough that the name of a mineral is given; its qualities might be written on a label with as much ease

as the name. This might, of course, be applied to other things with equal profit for aiding popular instruction. Looking at collections is too often like reading the titles of a library of books; it would be very different if each specimen was ticketed with an epitome of its own history. The Ipswich Museum, of which Professor Henslow is the president, is, we understand, a model of what such an institution ought to be, for teaching the natural sciences.

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by JAMES FRASER, 14 D'Olier Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

No. 152.

OF POPULAR

LITERATURES

A WILDERNESS OF WILD-DUCKS. A TASTE for natural history, a fondness for what quaint old Izaak Walton terms the contemplative man's recreation, and an especial interest in all matters relating to the finned and feathered tribes of animals, annually attract me to the fen-districts of England. On one of these excursions, about nine years since, I accidentally learned, to my great surprise, that in this country of sights and sight-seers, there were places strictly tabooed from all but the very few persons employed in their management: places that had never been profaned by the presence of a stranger; where even the spells of that most potent of enchanters-money-fail to gain an entrance; and where, I may add for the benefit of those who love a spice of the horrible, many hundreds of innocent lives are yearly sacrificed before the insatiate shrine of Mammon. Naturally of a persevering disposition, I have, time after time, made various attempts to gain admission to several of these places; but in each instance met with a decided, and, in truth, sometimes not very polite refusal. It is, however, only fair to state that the principal objection was not lest I should become 'mair wise,' as Burns has it, but lest my undesirable presence should interfere with the successful working, or detract from the reputation of the establishment; for, like many other business undertakings, the profits of these places depend solely on their reputation-their reputation, among the wildest of birds, in utter deserts unknown to the eye, unfrequented by the foot of the great persecutor, man. Consequently the sight, sound, or even odour of a man, if detected by the most timid and watchful of animals, might render fruitless the operations of weeks, and seriously reduce the profits of a whole season.

Human curiosity ever hankers to acquire a knowledge of the secret and forbidden; so each refusal made me the more anxious to succeed; every new discovery abroad tantalised me to think how I had been baffled at home. Captain M'Clure solved the long-hidden problem of the north-west passage; while I, Bradshaw in hand, was fruitlessly fretting and fuming up and down on the Eastern Counties Railway. Lake Ngami was explored; but I could not gain access to a Norfolk or Lincolnshire duck-pond. Lieutenant Burton entered the kaaba, kissed the black stone, and pelted the representative of a certain person who shall here be nameless; yet I could not penetrate the hidden recesses of an English fen. At last perseverance met with its reward. By a curious coincidence, on the very morning I read an account, in the Times, of the late ascent of Mount Ararat, I received a letter which gave me hopes, and subsequently led to their realisation.

PRICE 14d.

How I ultimately attained my long-desired object, it matters not to state. The time was last September; the place, I am forbidden to reveal. I was admitted by the proprietor, who, conducting the operations of his own establishment in person, was partly independent of any opposition to my presence, from the almost superstitious prejudices of the men generally employed in these places. Perfectly aware that the slightest indiscretion on my part might entail a heavy pecuniary loss on my liberal-minded conductor, I submitted to be led by the arm while on the delicate ground. Moreover, I promised to tread as lightly as possible, to preserve the strictest silence, to guard against any inadvertent exclamation escaping my lips, and to abstain from coughing or sneezing, though a piece of lighted turf should be held beneath my nose, to overpower the undesirable odour of my breath. Upon these conditions, all of which, I am happy to say, I faithfully, yet somewhat irksomely fulfilled, I was admitted among the devious covered-ways, and behind the treacherous screens of a place which wild-fowl foolishly consider to be a sanctuary, but which men technically, as well as literally, term a decoy.

'Dear me!' exclaims the reader, 'it is a decoy for catching wild-fowl the man makes so much mysterious fuss about. Almost every book on natural history describes it; and there is a capital account of one in the Penny Magazine, which, with two illustrations, explains the whole affair.' Softly, good reader. All the descriptions you have read were inaccurate, being derived from hearsay, and not from eyesight. The illustrations in the Penny Magazine are nice wood-cuts; but, though they have since done duty in another publication, the Museum of Animated Nature, they are, nevertheless, mere fancy sketches, representing neither the form, the working, nor the habitués of a decoy. One yelp of that noisy spaniel would ruin a dozen decoys. The dog, too, is represented behind the birds, as if frightening them, instead of being before, to attract them. Those well-dressed individuals, in sporting habiliments, would terrify a decoy-man into fits. One of them, as if to heighten the absurdity of the affair, is represented with a gun in his hand; while a gun in a decoy would be as much out of place as a blazing firebrand in a powder-magazine. So strictly, indeed, have strangers been prohibited from entering a decoy, that even the late distinguished naturalist, Mr Yarrell, copied these erroneous illustrations from the Penny Magazine into his standard work on British birds; with one slight exception, however the ridiculous apparition of the man with the gun was judiciously omitted in the copy.

A decoy is a sequestered pond or lake, sheltered on