'Sir,' said he, 'I have neither name, nor fortune, nor station, but I have the will and the power to labour. Can you give me a place in your office? The lowest would satisfy me.'

'What is your name, young man?' asked M. Perregaux, unable to take his eyes off his interesting countenance, and reading talent in the bright eye that, in renewed hope, now fearlessly met his. 'Jacques Lafitte,' was the answer. Your age?'

'I am twenty; I was born in 1767,' answered he. Are you a Parisian?' was the banker's next question. No, sir; I am from Bayonne,' answered Jacques. 'What is your father?' rejoined the banker. 'He is a carpenter,' replied the youth; but he has ten children,' he hastily added, and I am come to Paris to try to help my father to support them.'

'It is a laudable design, young man,' answered the banker, but I have no place vacant.' Then added, as he saw the utter disappointment that marked that expressive countenance, at present at least. I am sorry that it is so, but another time, perhaps.' Then dismissing the youth with a courteous but imperative gesture, he was obliged to retire.

Such a mind as that of Jacques Lafitte could not long remain in a subordinate capacity. The Revolution broke out. At the time of the Assembly of Notables he was book-keeper; then cash-keeper; and in 1804, partner to M. Perregaux; and soon after, his successor and executor. In 1809 he was appointed director, and in 1814 president of the Bank of France, having been previously made president of the Chamber of Commerce, and judge of the Tribunal of Commerce for the Seine department, which in 1816 he was chosen to represent in the Chamber of Deputies. After the Revolution of July 1830, he filled some of the highest offices of the state. His whole career was honourable to himself and beneficial to others. Honourable to himself, for he was indebted, under Providential blessing, to his own talent and irreproachable conduct for his brilliant success; and useful to others, for he never lost an opportunity of doing good. His benefits are still fresh in the memory-the heart-memory-of many. A child of the people himself, he never forgot the first day he stood a suppliant in the anteroom of M. Perregaux; and never did heavy heart, that he could relieve of its burden, return unsolaced.

Slowly and with downcast eyes he was crossing the banker's courtyard, when a pin on the ground caught his attention. He stooped, picked it up, and stuck it carefully in the lining of the cuff of his coat. This action, trifling as it was, decided the fortunes of the carpenter's son.

M. Perregaux was still standing in the window, unable to shake off the painful impression left by the look of almost agonised disappointment which his refusal had called up to the interesting countenance of the young petitioner. Involuntarily he gazed after him till he left the room, and still followed him with his eyes as he crossed the court with slow and languid step, his youthful figure drooping under disappointment, and deep dejection marking every feature. Suddenly he saw him stoop to some object too minute for him to distinguish from the window, and pick it up. By the use he made of it, the banker guessed what it must be; and the strong impression made by this little incident upon his mind, is perhaps inconceivable by those who know not how accurately character may be estimated by trifles. It was sufficient to enable M. Perregaux to discern in the youthful suitor he had rejected a mind trained to order and economy. The man,' he said, who would not let even a pin be lost, must have habits of calculation, order, and steadiness;' and opening the window, he gave a slight cough. Jacques looked up, and saw the banker beckoning to him to come back. Quickly was he again on the handsome staircase; but we will not say that this time he was quite as cautious of spoiling the carpets; and once more he stood, with head erect, in the presence of the banker.

'You will grant my request?' said he to him in a tone of happy confidence.

'What makes you so sure?' asked the banker with a smile.

Why otherwise would you have called me back?' said Lafitte.

Quick intellect, order, and economy !-you ought to make a good clerk,' was the cordial response of M. Per

NATURE AT WAR.

THIRD ARTICLE.

I HAVE described the wise and complicated provisions against danger from without with which the system of created beings has been endowed; but it must be observed that a great portion of the weapons thus catalogued as mere defensive instruments, become, with equal facility, powerful organs of offence; and according to the circumstances, habits, or emergencies, may be used at all times in subservience to either end. It is my business now to direct attention more particularly to the aggressions of the animal kingdom-to that which, in a few words, may be designated as the system of prey. Before, it was the implements of conflict and protection; now, it is the warfare itself which is to be discussed. That the face of nature should be found, on a due examination, to be stained with blood and deformed with civil war; that it should be an ordinance of creation that the life of one should depend upon the death of another creature; that this green world should be the great theatre in which myriads of bloody dramas are daily enacted-all this, as has been remarked formerly, is sufficiently startling to him who holds narrow views of the system which governs our world. Yet I must be content to leave its defence for a future occasion, while it is my endeavour at present to trace still further the wisdom and design of the Creator of all things in the development of the second feature of our interesting subject. In considering it attentively, it will be found to resolve itself into two great divisions, to which almost all examples are reducible; these are stratagetic and open warfare.

I shall commence with stratagems. Of all predatory devices, that which involves the greatest apparent amount of superior sagacity is the trap or snare. It is a curious subject for reflection to find one creature thus employing its apparently superior intelligence to effect the destruction of some less gifted or differently gifted one; but the fact that, in preparing these devices, the creature is only acting in obedience to an impulse with which it has been endowed, and is consequently displaying no really higher amount of sagacity than that of the bird in preparing its nest, the rabbit its burrow,

the bee its cell, divests it of that undue claim upon our surprise with which the enthusiastic among the lovers of natural history would endow it. Traps and gins are not, however, by any means common artifices; but the interest which naturally attaches to such instances, wherever they exist, outbalances their deficiency in numerical variety. In the formation of these traps, the most wonderful evidences of engineering and mathematical capabilities are to be found united to a heroic patience under difficulties, and perseverance against obstacles, which might well read a moral lesson to mankind. The pitfall is a stratagem of this nature. The larva of a particular species of beetle, the cicindela, hollows out for itself a den which in some measure acts as a trap for all unwary insects that draw near it. The insect, after choosing an appropriate soil, immediately applies itself to its work, and commences operations by scooping out the earth with its jaws and feet. These labours it continues until it has formed a cylindrical cavity twelve or eighteen inches deep, the bore of which is perpendicular. The laborious little workman, in making this excavation, is obliged to bring up load after load of earth, like a bricklayer his mortar, upon its head from the very bottom of the pit. When the depth of the pit is remembered, a proper value will be set upon the arduous nature of this travail: the poor insect, in fact, is frequently so exhausted, as to be compelled to rest upon its way up to recover strength to proceed; an event which has been foreseen, and to provide for which it has an apparatus somewhat like an anchor, by which it can hold on to the sides of the cavity. The cicindela then secures itself to the inside of the hole, near its entrance, its head exactly fitting the aperture, and forming a kind of trap-door to it. Here the insect, in philosophic patience, and with its terrible jaws widely expanded, awaits the arrival of its prey. A vagrant beetle, or a stray caterpillar, or a heedless ant, comes by and by, steps upon the insect's head, and is instantly seized by it, and hurled to the bottom of its gloomy den, whither the successful stratagist instantly follows, to reap the reward of its ingenuity and the fruits of its patient labour.

There is a more famous pit-digger, however, to be found in the ant-lion, the Myrmeleon formicarius; and here we shall find a far more refined subtilty at work. When it is in the larva state, it excavates a funnelshaped pit in the following manner. It seems to spend much care and thought in the selection of a proper spot, where the earth is dry, friable, and particularly where it is sandy; and this accomplished, it begins by describing a circle on the ground, the circumference of which is to be the limit of its trap. It then stations itself inside this line, and, with all the method of a human excavator, begins its work. It uses one of its fore-legs as the spade, and shovels up by this means a tiny load of earth upon its head, tossing it thence to a distance of several inches from the outer margin of the trap. Working assiduously in this apparently awkward fashion, it proceeds backwards; and when it has completed the circle, it turns round, and beginning another inside the last, it works on until it comes to the same spot again; and so on alternately. By this simple means it never overworks either of its legs. It steadily proceeds in its labour, until at length a conical hole, varying from one to three inches in diameter, is formed. The labourer then buries his body at the bottom of the trap, being careful to leave only his jaws above the surface, and thus he lies waiting for the first windfall. The reader will find, in writings upon entomology, most captivating accounts of this creature's wonderful patience and adaptive skill, to which it is sufficient for me to refer him if he seeks to know more concerning it. When an insect approaches the margin of the den, a little shower of sand rolls down, and calls the ant-lion to the qui vive; a step farther, and the intruder stumbles over the edge, and tumbles down, in a cloud of dust, into the embrace of its ruthless enemy. It is then instantly seized in the powerful jaws of the ant-lion; its juices

are sucked out; and when sated with the draught, the artful epicure places the dead dry carcase carefully on its head, and carts it out of the pit. Sometimes the victim makes a struggle for its life, and scrambles with the speed of terror up the treacherous sides of the den; but in this case the ant-lion sends after it such volleys of sand, as usually bring the fugitive down again into its enemy's power.

These devices for entrapping prey are practised by insects generally possessed of very feeble locomotive powers, and appear otherwise incapable of obtaining a single mouthful of food. The ant-lion, for instance, cannot pursue its fleet-legged prey, and is, in truth, altogether unable to move in any but a retrograde direction; but ample compensation is to be found in the success of his stratagem, which is in general so great, as to supply a very dainty creature with an abundance of that refined sort of sustenance in which it delights. The margins of these traps, all bestrewed as they are with the mangled carcases of the victims of this destroyer, remind one of the old fables of the giants who feasted upon human victims, and covered the plain in the vicinity of their dens with the bones and mangled remains of their unfortunate prey.

The

Next in order in this stratagetic warfare, we meet with the system of gins. But both it and the preceding are artifices almost confined to insect warfare. spider's web may be taken as the type of such plans in general. In its structure, in its adaptation to situation and circumstances, and in its different degrees of strength, are to be found the sole varieties which we are to expect in this department. The nets are of many different kinds. Some, from the geometric accuracy of their lines, have received a correspondent title; some are woven with apparently no such rigid arrangement, but consist simply of threads intricately interlaced, forming a cloud-like fabric which no human art can imitate; some are suspended perpendicularly, their ends tied to the sprigs and leaves around; while others are laid horizontally, swinging like a hammock from a stalwart series of supporting blades of grass. There is a kind of spider, common enough in Britain, which, after carefully constructing its net, forms a delicate cell for its own concealment somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood, at the bottom of which it crouches down in expectation of its prey. Others cast forth and fasten down blue and delicate tacklings in an indiscriminate manner, trusting to chance to direct some insect against them. The lines of several kinds are covered with amazingly minute floccules of silk, which wrap round and firmly entangle any insect which casts itself against them. Among other varieties of spider network, is one which consists in a delicate purse-like cell forming the centre, from the margin of which several lines radiate in every direction. The spider places itself in this cell, taking hold of these lines; and as soon as an insect touches any portion of her tackling, rushes out from her concealment to the attack. Many of my readers must have seen, stretched upon the hedgerow, all glistening with drops of dew, a delicate whitish-looking net; this is the work of a spider which is concealed at the bottom of a silken-covered way near its margin, where it 'bides its time.' Add to these the performances of the aeronautic spiders, about which so much has been, and remains to be, written, and the list of web-like devices may be called complete.

To turn to the artifice of baits. This is altogether confined to the higher orders of creatures, and is a rarity even among them. It is well known that monkeys, and it is related that the racoon, when driven by want of other food to prey upon crabs, insert their tails into the holes where the crab lives secure; upon which the victim fastens upon the bait with its claws, and the monkey immediately runs away, dragging the crab out of its cell up the beach, when the ravisher breaks the shell and devours its contents. The ant-eater affords a remarkable illustration also of a similar ingenuity. This creature, on discovering an ant-hill,

stamps and scratches upon it with its feet, and makes such a noise, as to draw forth thousands of its angry tenants. It is then said to conceal itself in the herbage, and to thrust out its tongue, which is slimy, red, and about two feet long, into the midst of the swarm. The insects perceiving such a tempting morsel of red flesh within reach, crowd upon it, and cover it all over: and there they are held by the glairy viscidity of the tongue, and are drawn into the ant-eater's mouth and devoured. It is said that if the ants will not come out readily, the ant-eater will knock down their houses, and thrust his tongue into the thickest of the infuriated insects, being able to bid defiance to their attacks by reason of his impenetrable hide. Desmarest asserts that the gulo, or glutton, will mount up trees, gather the lichen from them, and fling it down as a bait for the reindeer, upon whose neck it drops if the bait is successful. This is not credited, however, by other naturalists. Pliny says that the Lophius piscatorius, or sea-devil, buries itself in the mud, and leaves only its long beards to be seen above the surface: the smaller fish seize upon these as bait, and are immediately drawn into the angler's mouth. It is only fair to add that this still rests upon his authority alone.

Ambuscades are a far more common means of capture among all classes of the animal kingdom. Evelyn in his travels in Italy gives a most amusing account of the manoeuvres of a spider which he denominates a hunter, and stigmatises with being a kind of insectwolf. This creature, it seems (which is also common in our gardens), on perceiving a fly at a little distance, would cautiously creep up to it, and after peeping over and carefully ascertaining the insect's position, would leap upon him like lightning, catch him in the fall, and never quit her hold until her belly was full. Lying in ambush is the customary resort of many carnivorous animals; thus the lion, tiger, panther, lynx, and many more of the feline tribe, bury themselves in the recesses of the bush or brake, or with a subtler cunning seek out some hiding-place near the watertrack of deer or cattle, and bound upon their quarry with a terrific war-whoop. Some of them climb up trees, and patiently rest upon their branches until the prey passes beneath, when they shoot down upon its back. The ichneumon, in embellishing whose natural history inventive talent has exhausted itself, is related to feign himself dead until his victim is within reach, when he pounces upon and destroys it. The wretched Egyptians adored this brute as a deity, from the service it rendered them in the destruction of the eggs of the crocodile. It used to be said that the ichneumon darted down the crocodile's throat, and destroyed it by devouring its entrails, and then ate its way out again! The chetah and ounce, which are used in hunting the antelope, are the exact parallels of the venatorial spider. These creatures, when they perceive their prey in view, creep stealthily along the ground, concealing themselves carefully from sight, and when they have reached within leap of the herd, they make several immense bounds, and dart in upon them.

This is a sketch of the types of the stratagetic warfare carried on in all portions of the kingdom of nature. A scene of blood and rapacity opens upon us when we turn to the other division of our subject-open war. Among all classes, to speak generally of the animal kingdom, there exists this division-carnivorous and herbivorous animals; some being partakers of both peculiarities, and therefore called omnivorous. One of these great classes subsists by making war upon its own department in creation; the other by preying upon the vegetable productions of the earth: and so intimate is the connexion between bloodshed and ferocity, that, as a common rule, the creatures belonging to the first class are conspicuous for their savage, unappeasable, untameable dispositions, while the latter are peaceful, and, excepting in the event of an attack, commonly inoffensive animals. Thus it is with the predaceans of the carnivorous kind that our present

business lies. Giving once more a brief precedence to insects, we find scorpions and others furious cannibals, and after a general combat, setting to and devouring the dead bodies of their slain. There is a sandwasp or spher, which is a fierce creature too; he will pounce upon larvæ, large spiders, and other insects, and even cockroaches, plunging his sting into their bodies, and then at leisure consuming them. Some flies will also thrust their prey, small aphides, through with their weapons, and devour them in astonishing numbers. Kirby gives a very pretty account of the destruction wrought by our familiar little friend the lady-bird, which, he says, does incredible service to the hopgrowers by consuming tens of thousands of the hop-fly. When the cicindela is in its perfect state, it is also a fearful destroyer of the insect race. Linnæus has called it the insect tiger. It has formidable jaws and fangs, and from its strength, vigilance, and velocity, is the terror of the insect world. The dragon-fly, or libelullina, is equally terrible, both in its larva and pupa states. An anecdote is related of a combat between the pupa of a dragon-fly and a stickleback, in which the former with its jaws and forceps attacked the stickleback, and after an obstinate and bloody contest, at length obtained the victory. Wasps, ants, hornets, earwigs, water scorpions, and many others, labour under the same stigma. Some of them seem almost to murder for murder's sake, and will destroy a number of insects without an attempt to devour them. In fact these insects scarcely seem to know what the sentiment of fear is, and with surprising courage will attack and overcome enemies much their superiors in size.

The

The carnivorous birds likewise wage a deadly warfare upon their own race, and upon the weaker animals. They are generally solitary creatures. To use Goldsmith's words-They prowl alone, and, like robbers, enjoy in solitude the fruits of their plunder. They spread terror wherever they approach: all that variety of music which but a moment before enlivened the grove, at their appearing is instantly at an end: every order of lesser birds seek for safety either by concealment or flight, and some are even driven to take protection with man, to avoid their less merciful pursuers.' The eagle, in the stern majesty of superior strength and fierceness, is the head of rapacious birds. In his wake follows the audacious and cunning osprey, which is guilty of both robbery and murder, darting upon diving birds, and snatching their prey from their beaks. piggargus and the bal-buzzard are also constantly engaged in mutual warfare. The condor, by its size, weapons, and evil habits, ranks even higher for his deeds of blood. Humboldt asserts that this bird and its mate will attack a deer, wounding it with their beaks and talons until it drops with exhaustion, and is soon destroyed and devoured. He adds, that the mischief done to cattle and sheep in its vicinity is immense. The vulture, though entertaining a preference for the haut gout of corruption, will nevertheless pounce upon so large a creature as a heifer, if it lies down upon the ground, and succeed in destroying it. And last, not least ferocious, is the valiant shrike or butcher-bird, which seems possessed with a spirit of the intensest hatred to all the feathered race. Its name is derived from the circumstance that they are said, when they have killed their prey, to spit it, as human butchers their meat, upon some thorn, until they are at leisure to devour it. In mentioning further the names of the falcon, hawk, buzzard, and kite, and in barely alluding to the birds which go forth to prey at night, the subject will have received a sufficient illustration.

The ocean is the vast arena in which the practice of mutual destruction reaches its climax; for this reason, that fish, as a general rule, exist by devouring their smaller, weaker brethren, or are insectivorous creatures: so that, before the pike or the salmon can make a single meal, they must have imbrued themselves in the blood of some of the animated beings which crowd the waters or float in the air. The crustaceans-the crab

and lobster-particularly distinguish themselves in this conflict. With a courage inspired no doubt by conscious impregnability, some of them will go thrashing up the mud along shore, and recklessly seizing upon and devouring whatsoever comes within grasp of their Herculean forceps. But when their moult comes on, when they have lost their stout defences, they are placed in a pitiably helpless condition, and in this state suffer the full vengeance of retribution, falling victims in myriads to the thousand chances and enemies of the sea. There is a species of trochus, or sea-snail, which is even more formidable than the crustaceans. This creature is a universal belligerent, and while dreaded himself, seems to dread no foe. He has a kind of borer, with which he will attack the thickest shell; and, like the gulo, assiduously stick to it until he has penetrated it, and destroyed its unfortunate occupant. The doredo, the mortal enemy of the persecuted flying-fish, is a very ravenous creature; and the shark, sword-fish, and dogfish, whose ravages among the tenants of the waters are famous, have become familiar synonymes for rapacity and cruelty; while the great whale destroys at a gulp millions of the clio borealis. Among reptiles, the bloodthirsty crocodile occupies a prominent position: he is the enemy of man and beast; and whatsoever creature ventures down to his abode, he attacks with equal fearlessness and ferocity. Terrible battles between tigers and crocodiles are on record, in which, while in his own element, the latter has generally been victor.

Here I will take my leave of these deeds of animal rapacity. If the illustrations to which I have confined myself appear to the lover of natural history, as indeed they are, cramped and incomplete, it results not from the deficiency, but from the very superabundance of the material-the difficulty having been a sufficiently rigid selection and condensation.

VISIT TO RAGGED SCHOOLS IN LIVERPOOL.* THE establishment of what were called 'Ragged Schools' in London, lately induced several benevolent and influential gentlemen of Liverpool to organise a few schools of the same kind in that town. Subscriptions were accordingly made, a managing committee appointed, rooms hired, and salaried professional teachers elected. The town of Liverpool contains large numbers of children who never attend day-schools, and who grow up with little or no school instruction. The field for such Ragged Schools is therefore very extensive. It was resolved by the committee that all children, from the ages of six to seventeen, should be allowed to attend the schools without any charge whatsoever. All who presented themselves were to be received; but to prevent overcrowding, as well as to restrict the schools to that class for which they were more particularly intended, none were taken who were actually in attendance at a day-school, unless there was sufficient room in the Ragged School for them. Operations were commenced in July 1846. The schools for boys meet every evening (excepting Saturday and Sunday), from seven to nine o'clock; and for girls on the same evenings, from half-past six to half-past eight o'clock. There are now in operation two schools for boys, containing one hundred and thirty, and two for girls, containing one hundred and forty pupils. A few notes of visits lately paid to these schools may perhaps be of interest to the readers of this Journal. It must be premised, that as yet the schools can only be considered in their infancy, and have been planted only in one quarter of the town. Their extension will of course depend upon the success of the plan, and the liberality of the public.

It was not an easy matter to reach the first school to which I was directed. At length I discovered it at the end of one of the streets leading to the docks, and in the midst of a locality suitable for its humane ope

*This article has been forwarded to us by a gentleman resident in Liverpool-ED. C. E. J.

rations. A low building, without windows to the street, through the door of which gleamed bright light, was the school. The interior was rude and rough, and the walls were little more than a shelter from the weather. The floor was flagged, the bare brick walls whitewashed, and there was no ceiling, the room being lighted during the day by skylights in the roof. A few seats and desks ranged in the room accommodated the pupils, about seventy-five in number; a small stage was erected for the teacher; and at one end of it an extempore form had been made by placing a rough board, with its end resting on empty barrels, on which several boys were seated, practising writing on slates. There was neither fireplace nor stove in the room, but it was well lighted by gas, the heat of which, combined with the respiration of the pupils, rendered the air most unhealthy.

He

It was indeed a 'Ragged School.' Cold as the night was, many of the boys wore neither shoes nor stockings. The clothes of many were in tatters, and had evidently had several owners before coming into the possession of their present wearers. A few were in fustian dresses that had long ago lost their whiteness in the workshop. The faces of several were very dirty, and their hair hung in tangled masses about their ears; but out of the dirt and disorder gleamed bright piercing eyes, whose lustre nothing appeared to dim. Many had evidently come to school with new-washed' evening 'face,' but not one came creeping like snail,' or unwillingly. The boys were of all ages, from six to seventeen, and were all busy and cheerful. There was only one exception. This was a strong wild lad, of about fifteen, who was resting his head on one of the benches, apparently asleep. was dressed in a wide jacket of rough blue flannel, his hands and face were unwashed, and a phrenologist would have found in his head a remarkable development of Combativeness and Destructiveness. This lad wrought in a foundry, and the teacher described him as the most troublesome pupil-a self-willed, mischievous boy, whom it was a relief to see doing nothing. Still, this lad had received a little smattering of knowledge. He was in course of being broken in,' and might (such things have been) become a rough energetic engineer on some line of railway not yet provisionally registered.' However, here he was reposing on the desk, under the master's platform, while an advanced class of about eight or ten boys, collected around him, were reading from Chambers's Simple Lessons.' The lesson was a short account of the life of Mungo Park, and was read in a very passable manner. The answers to the questions put to the boys showed how attentive they had been to the sense as well as the words. The lesson being finished, the master was about to collect the books, when he was called away, as he often necessarily was, to another part of the room. It was interesting to observe that the boys, instead of closing the books, laying them aside, and then teasing each other, as some would have expected, still continued to read, but not aloud; and when the master came back, the books were given up with the greatest reluctance, each boy retaining his as long as he possibly could. The books seemed to have opened up a new world, and appeared to convey a pleasure as intense as it was rare. One boy in this class, who was very intent on his book, was as dusty as a miller,' and I found that he was a baker's boy, whose daily employment for some years had been to go out with bread, and do other drudgery in a baker's shop. Here was another attentive lad, with blackened face and horny hands, who had been attentively listening to the story of Mungo Park, and who told the teacher, as he left school, that he could not attend during the following week, as he wrought in a foundry, and was then required to take his turn, with many others, at night-work. The teacher said that he had many such pupils.

On one of the platform seats were about a dozen young boys learning to write on slates placed on their knees. Some could write their own names, but the