tea-tray on the table and to Sarah's empty
cup, and he whispered to himself, in his own
language again:

"The music stopped so, when little Joseph
died!"

           OLD SCRAPS OF SCIENCE.

            Marchez, marchons, mes Compagnons!
                                 Marseillaise Hymn.

As Science improves upon Ignorance, every
epoch claims for itself the pre-eminence of
having made such wonderful progress as
almost to leave nothing farther to be explored.
Yet, notwithstanding this perennial boast,
there has still been much for research to
discover; and, though there may be nothing
new under the sun, there appears to
be a great deal to learn concerning the old,
which has been all round about man since
the creation of the world. In many things,
it is true, we add little if aught to the
ancient knowledge which has been transmitted
to us; but in others our advances
have been so conspicuous as to afford us a
right to expect greater progress, if we only
seek it with due humility and philosophical
spirit.

Professor Daubeny's resumé of the present
condition of the most important branches of
science, in his inauguration of the last British
Association meeting at Cheltenham, is a
valuable paper; and withal as modest as
could be expected on such an occasion, when
Laudator temporis acti has almost always
been the leading blemish, though considerably
repressed at the later assemblages. So
far, the learned president has cleared the
way, and taught us to look forward to
prodigious strides in the various paths of intelligence
on which so many able men are now
travelling; and it is to be hoped that his
anticipations may be realised. Holding with him
in this trust, it is in the way of entertainment
and not in the mood of throwing cold water
on warm aspirings, that we take up our pen
to retrace a few features of an example set
before the inquisitive scientific world, nearly
two centuries ago, when Prince Rupert
(instead of Prince Albert) and Boyle, Malpighi,
Swammerdam, Sir Christopher Wren,
Evelyn, Hook, Aubrey, Willoughby, Sir William
Petty, Sir Isaac Newton, and the young,
Royal Society stood forth in place of the
Daubenys, Sedgwicks, Sabines, Owens
(Forbes, Johnstons, alas! no more), Whewells,
Murchisons, Playfairs, Ansteds, Henslows,
Faradays, Herschels, Brewsters, Airys,
Whitworths, Wheatstones, Groveses, Harrises,
and British Association of our day.

The former were giants in their time—
oracles in the sciences. They look back with
infinite pity on the darkness of preceding
ages, and upheld the enlightened era which
they shone to illuminate. We mean no
disparagement; but a cursory retrospective
glance over (let us say for instance) the natural
history of that age may not only be amusing,
but teach us to modify the ultra high
valuations of our noble selves.

We certainly do not now believe that a
leopard is a cross between a lion and a panther; or
that a squirrel (or flying-cat) "When he hath
a mind to cross any water for a good nut-tree,
picks out, and sits on some light piece
of barque for a boat, and erecting his tail for
a sail [rhyme if not reason], he makes his
voyage."

Probably, we should doubt the fact of
crocodiles, as then in Paname, an hundred
feet long; and as for turtles, curiously
figured by Besler in his Fascicul. Rariorum,
under the title of sea-tortoises, we would
question their shell serving the natives for
boats in the Indian sea, or creeping along—
in Cuba—with five men upon their backs. To
a civic magnate of London, still more incredible
will be the assertion that, "In the
Brazilian shore," such creatures were "found,
said [saving clause] to be big enough for one
sometimes to dine fourscore men!"

On the authority of Aristotle, Ælian,
Cicero, quoted by Gesner, we are assured
that the shovler, or spoonbill, is a very Dando
in the matter of oysters; for he fills his crop
with them, and lets them lie there till the
heat makes them open, whereupon disgorging
them, he pecks the meat clean out of the
shells by dozens. The same Gesner represents
the Solan goose as a perfect epicure, for,
"She will swallow and disgorge again a great
many fishes, one after another, and at last
return with one (in her crop) to her young
ones. It seems most probable," adds the
observant naturalist, "that she trys which of
the many will best agree with her own
stomach, and when she finds one more delicate
than the rest, she carries that to her
young." Of these remarkable geese, it is
farther stated that, when they come to
build, they bring so great a quantity of
broken wood with them, that the people there
supply themselves with as much as serves for
their firing all the year.

Upon the weeping of stags our author
comments most ungallantly, for he remarks
that "The tears are generally affirmed to be
sudorifick, or of an [awful word]
Alexipharmick nature; "and impertinently adds,
"If they were as easy to be had as some
women's, it were worth the trying."Scaliger,
on the other hand, describes a stag's tears as
bones formed in the corners of their eyes,
after they are a hundred years old; to the
truth of which it is impossible to bear
witness from our sporting in the Highlands,
where neither stag nor red-deer is
permitted to reach that tough and patriarchal
age.

The rib of a triton or mareman (merman),
caught near the Brazils, and a bone said to
be out of a maremaid's (mermaid's) head,
are duly noticed. The former is about the