you be being five times the amount of 20 guin- THE NATURALIST'S DIARY. JULY. month in his favourite pursuit. On trout The angler is busily engaged this fishing we give the following pretty descriptive lines from Mickle's Syr Martyn: in -When atop the hoary western hill, The ruddie Sun appears to rest his chin, explain his sentiments, as he had promised. All were fixed in mute attention when he made this memorable answer: "Gentlemen, my sentiments are already explained; the lesson is already given. When our ancestors were gradually rising to wealth under the yoke of Burgundy, Austria, Spain, their frugality was contented with our first dish, and they even blessed the inventor, In their second period, when the noble house of Orange, when Maurice of Nassau was establishing our power the East and West Indies, and commercial wealth began to overflow all When not a breeze disturbs the murmuring rill, our ports and canals, still habits and prudence occasioned economy, and our rich senators dined on plain mutton, and drank wholesome beer. The dinner I have had the honour to give you is a very moderate specimen of our present existence. Add the luxury and pomp of houses, furniture and equipages, and judge, as you well can, of the difference of expense-a difference which, I would venture to say, would have, even for one year, been regarded as a fortune by our bearded Then, slyly nibbling, pru dish from it flies, ancestors." To be continued. THE LAW OF GAMBLING. At the Lancaster Assizes, April 1820, Henry Patrickson, and John And mildlie warm the falling dewes begin, Watching the buzzing flies, that never blin, divides. on the green bank a truant schoolboy stands ; And ashen rod obeys his guileful hands, And leads the mimick fly across her way; Till with a bouncing start she bites the truth lea prize. Ah, then the younker gives the fatefull twitch, Postlethwaite, were found guilty of In vain the sedgy nook for help she tries; The laughing elfe now curbs now aids her flight, When by the riv'let's banks, with blushes coy, In purling streams, she pants, she gasps and dies. Another author has thus elegantly described the making of the 'mimic fly.' To frame the little animal,-provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: The shining bellies of the fly require ; Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail; 426 Varieties: Literary, &c. Furs, pearls, plumes, the glittering thing displays, The different tribes of insects are now in full vigour. Innumerable herbs and flowers embellish our gardens, gratify our sense of smell, and purify and renovate the atmosphere; and teeming nature sends forth her countless millions of vegetable and animal production.* Nothing can be more curious than the appearance exhibited by mouldiness, when PHOENICIAN NAVIGATORS. Some workmen recently digging a cave in the environs of the Cape of Good Hope, discovered the hull of a vessel, built of cedar, and supposed to be the remains of a Phoenician galley. Should this hypothesis be verified, it would prove that the adventurous Tyrians had reached the southern point of Africa. It is stated that the mines whence good microscope, the viewed through a microscope. If looked at the Greeks and Romans originally deby the naked eye, it seems nothing but an ir-rived their emeralds, have been re-disregular tissue of filaments; but the magnify covered near Mount Zabarah, in the ing glass shows it to be a forest of small plants, which derive their nourishment from the vicinity of the Red Sea; and 6lb. of moist substance which serves them as a base. the mineral dug from them for the The stems of these plants may be plainly dis- Pasha of Egypt. But the emerald was tinguished; and sometimes their buds, some shut and some open. They have much simi- also obtained abundantly in ancient larity to mushrooms, the tops of which, when times from the eastern parts of Asia. they come to maturity, emit an exceedingly fine dust which is their seed. Mushrooms, it is well known, are the growth of a single night but those in miniature, of which we are speaking, seem to come to perfection in a much less space of time than that; hence we account for the extraordinary progress which mouldiness makes in a few hours. Another curious observation of the same kind is, that M. Ahlefeld, seeing some stones covered with a surt of dust, had the curiosity to examine it with a microscope, and he found that it consisted of small microscopic mushrooms, raised on pedicles, the heads of which, round the middle, were turned up at the edges. They were striated also from the centre to the circumference, as certain kinds of mushrooms are. He further remarked, that they contained, above their upper covering, a multitude of small grains shaped like cherries somewhat flattened, which he suspected were the seeds; and finally he observed, among this forest of mushroons, several small red insects, which probably fed upon them. The lycoperdon, or puff-ball, is a plant of The farina of flowers is found to be regular- The view exhibited by those plants which have down, such as borage, nettles, &c. is exceedingly curious. When examined by a microscope, they appear to be covered with spikes. Those of borage are, for the most part, bent so as to form an elbow; and though really very close, they appear by the microscope, to be at a considerable distance from each other. The entire appearance is very If a needle be viewed through a micro similar to that of the skin of the porcupine. cope, though exceedingly fine, it is well known the point will appear quite blunt, more like a peg, broken at the end, than a sharp-pointed steel needle. The edge of the finest set razor, when seen through a microscope, will appear more like the back of a penknife, full of irregularities, than what it really is. In these respects, the works of art, when carried to the highest pitch of perfec tion, will not bear to be compared with the operations of nature. The latter, exposed to the microscope, instead of losing their lustre and high polish, appear so much the more beautiful and perfect in regularity and order. When the eyes of a fly are illuminated by means of a lamp or candle, and viewed thro this instrument, each of them shows an image of the taper with a precision and vivacity which nothing can equal. There are two kinds of sand, viz. the calcareous and the vitrifiable: the former, ex amined with a microscope, resemble large irregular fragments of rock; but the latter appear like so many rough diamonds. In some instances, the particles of sand seem to be highly polished and brilliant, like an asCharcoal is a fine object for the microscope. semblage of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, It is found full of pores, regularly arranged, and passing through its whole length. ZOOLOGY OF THE GREENLAND BEAR. T HE Polar, or Greenland Bear, the "He may be captured in the water without much danger; but on the ice, he has such power of resistance at command, that the experiment is hazardous. When pursued and attacked, 2S ATHENEUM VOL. 7. he always turns upon his enemies. If struck with a lance, he is apt to seize it in his mouth, and either bite it in two, or wrest it out of the hand. If shot with a ball, unless he is struck in the head, in the heart, or in the shoulder, he is enraged rather than depressed, and falls with increased power upon his pursuers. When shot at a distance and able to escape, he has been observed to retire to the shelter of a hummock, and, as if conscious of the styptical effect of cold, apply snow with his paws to the wound. "Though possessed of courage and great means of defence, he always, unless urged by hunger, retreats before men. His general walk is slow and deliberate; but when impelled by danget or hunger, he proceeds by a galloping step; and upon ice, can easily outrun any man. "The flesh when cleared of the fat, is well flavoured and savoury, especially the muscular part of the ham. I once treated my surgeon with a dinner of bear's ham, who knew not, for above a month afterwards, but that it was a beef-steak. The liver, I may observe as a curious fact, is hurtful and even deleterious; while the flesh and liver of the seal, on which it chiefly feeds, are nourishing and palatable. Sailors, who have inadvertently eaten the liver of bears, have almost always been sick after it: some have actually died; and the effect on others, has been to cause the skin to peel off their bodies. This is, perhaps, almost the only instance kaown of any part of the flesh of a quadruped proving unwholesome. "Bears, though they have been known to eat one another, are remarkably affectionate to their young. The female, which has generally two at a birth, defends them with such zeal, and watches over them with such anxiety, that she sometimes falls a sacrifice to her maternal attachment. A pleasing and very extraordinary instance of sagacity in a mother bear was related to me by a credible and well informed person, who accompanied me in several voyages to the whale-fishery in the capacity of surgeon. This bear, with two cubs under its protection, was pursued across a field of ice, by a party of armed sailors. At first she seemed to urge the young ones to an increase of speed, by running before them, turning round, and manifesting, by a peculiar action and voice, her anxiety for their progress but finding her pursuers gaining upon them, she carried, or pushed, or pitched them alternately forward, until she effected their escape. In throwing them before her, the little creatures are said to have placed themselves across her path, to receive the impulse; and, when projected some yards in advance, they ran onwards until she overtook them, when they alternately adjusted them selves for a second throw. "Several instances of peculiar sagacity in these animals have been observed. "A seal, lying on the middle of a large piece of ice, with a hole just before it, was marked out by a bear for its prey, and secured by the artifice of diving under the ice, and making its way to the hole by which the seal was prepared to retreat. The seal, however, observed its approach, and plunged into the water; but the bear instantly sprung upon it, and appeared, in about a minute afterwards, with the seal in its mouth. "The captain of oue of the whalers being anxious to procure a bear, with out wounding the skin, made trial of the stratagem of laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of kreng within it. A bear, ranging the neighbouring ice, was soon enticed to the spot by the smell of burning meat. He perceived the bait, approached, and seized it in his mouth; but his foot, at the same moment, by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with the adjoining paw, and deliberately retired. After having eaten the piece he carried away with him, he returned. The noose, with another piece of kreng, being then replaced, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked triumphantly off with the kreng. A third time the noose was laid, but, excited to caution by the evident obser vation of the bear, the sailors buried the rope beneath the snow, and laid the bait in a deep hole dug in the centre. The bear once more approached, and the sailors were assured of their success. But Bruin, more sagacious than they expected, after snuffing about the place for a few moments, scraped the snow away with his paw, threw the rope aside, and again escaped unhurt with his prize. "In the month of June 1812, a female bear, with two cubs, approached the ship I commanded, and was shot. The cubs, not attempting to escape, were taken alive. These animals, though at first evidently very unhappy, became at length, in some measure, reconciled to their situation; and, being tolerably tame, were allowed occasionally to go at large about the deck. While the ship was moored to a floe, a few days after they were taken, one of them, having a rope fastened round his neck, was thrown overboard. It immediately swam to the ice, got upon it, and attempted to escape. Finding it self, however, detained by the rope, it endeavoured to disengage itself in the following ingenious way. Near the edge of the floe was a crack in the ice, of a considerable length, but only 18 inches or 2 feet wide, and 3 or 4 feet deep. To this spot the bear returned; and when, on crossing the chasm, the bight of the rope fell into it, he placed himself across the opening; then sus pending himself by his hind feet, with a leg on each side, he dropped his head and most part of his body into the chasm; and, with a foot applied to each side of the neck, attempted, for some minutes, to push the rope over his head. Finding this scheme ineffectual, he removed to the main ice, and running with great impetuosity from the ship, gave a remarkable pull on the rope; then going backward a few steps, he repeated the jerk. At length, after repeated attempts to escape this way, every failure of which he announced by a significant growl, he yielded himself to his hard necessity, and lay down on the ice in angry and sullen silence. "Accidents with bears occasionally occur, though not so many, by any means, as the ferocity of these animals, and the temerity of the sailors, who embrace every opportunity of attacking them, might lead one to expect." "A bear which was attacked by a boat's crew, in the Spitzbergen Sea, made such a formidable resistance that it was enabled to climb the side of the boat and take possession of it, while the intimidated crew fled for safety to the water, supporting themselves by the gunwale and rings of the boat, until, by the assistance of another party from their ship, it was shot as it sat inoffensively in the stern. And, with regard to narrow escapes, I shall only add, that a sailor, who was pursued on a field of ice by a bear, when at a considerable distance from assistance, preserved his life, by throwing down an article of cloathing, whenever the bear gained upon him, on which it always suspended the pursuit, until it had. examined it, and thus gave him time to obtain some advance. In this way, by means of a hat, a jacket, and a neck handkerchief, successively cast down, the progress of the bear was retarded, and the sailor escaped from the danger that threatened him, in the refuge afforded him by his vessel." It would far exceed our limits even to catalogue the remainder of Captain Scoresby's zoological inquiries, including the rein-deer, sharks, birds, amphibia, &c. &c. We shall merely quote a passage concerning the Squalus Borealis, or Greenland Shark, which, as far as we know, has not heretofore been described. The sailors imag ine this shark to be blind, because it pays not the least attention to the presence of a man; and is, indeed, so apparently stupid, that it never draws back when a blow is aimed at it with a knife or lance. "The squalus borealis is 12 or 14 feet in length, sometimes more,and 6 or 8 feet in circumference Its liver, which is remarkably oily, will fill a barrel. In its general form, it very much resembles the dog fish. The opening of the mouth, which extends nearly across the lower part of the head, is 21 to 24 inches in width. The teeth are serrated in one jaw, and lancet-shaped and denticulated in the other. On each side, there are at least four or five rows; on one side sometimes seven or eight. "This shark is one of the foes of the whale. It bites it and annoys it while living, and feeds on it when dead. It scoops hemispherical pieces out of its body, nearly as big as a person's head; and continues scooping and gorging lump after lump, until the whole cavity of its belly is filled. It is so insensible of pain, that though it has been run through the body with a knife and escaped; yet after a while, I have seen it return again on the whale, at the very spot where it received its wounds. The heart is very small. It performs 6 or 8 pulsations in a minute; and continues its beating for some hours after taken out of the body. The body, also, though separated into any number of parts, gives evidence of life for a similar length of time. It is, therefore, extremely difficult to kill. It is actually unsafe to trust the hand in its mouth, though the head be separated from the body." |