habiliments of volunteer cavaliers, instead of improving the condition of the peasantry or lessening the social evils under which the poorly fed and densely cribbed inhabitants of the towns laboured and do still labour.

During the last thirty years, Britain has been undergoing, as it were, a process of self-communion. She has been turning her eyes inward as well as abroad, and the conviction has strengthened, and is strengthening, that there are many evils to be weeded from the most intimate relations of her social economy, and a wide scope for improvement presented in the present condition of the people. There have been no lack of propositions and associations for bettering the condition of those who, living in cities, are brought immediately under the cognizance of the educated and philanthropic; and there is no doubt that there is a great advancement manifest, within the last quarter of a century, in the morals and deportment of the people, but the physical condition of both citizen and peasant is yet a subject of much anxiety to philanthropists, and the problem of its permanent melioration one of much concern. Benevolence may manifest itself in two ways, and these are equally commendable and good, according to the condition of the parties benefited; but it has been found that to minister to the wants of a strong and healthy man is not the best way to conduce to his welfare, although to a sick man it would be the only practicable and beneficial method of doing him good. The great incentives to labour are necessity and the desire of acquiring property. He who supplies his own wants, and of those also dependent upon him, although he may be poor, preserves one of the noblest attributes of the human soul-that of self-respect. By ministering to the wants of this man, in what may be termed the spirit of arbitrary charity, the necessity of labour is destroyed, and the sentiment of selfrespect gives place to a sense of dependence; the impulse of progress is annihilated, and he who was formed to labour and support sinks down into a nonentity and a burden upon the industry of others. Experience has proven that arbitrary charity is neither the wisest nor kindest means of assisting, especially large numbers or classes of men, but that sympathetic charity is not only more efficient to elevate, but also more readily to be received and appreciated by those for whom the good is intended. Yearly donations of coals and blankets to the peasantry are no doubt welcome boons to them, and kindly meant by those who bestow them, but it is better, and kinder, and nobler far, to suggest means of improvement in the condition of the peasantry to the peasantry themselves; to sympathise with and assist them in their efforts at their own improvement; and rather to render the means given to them reproductive and accumulative than finite and conducive to habits of idleness and dependence. We refer our readers to No. 135 of the INSTRUCTOR, where they will find, in the sketch of the life of that great philanthropist, William Allen, an allusion to the colonies of Frederick's Oord, in Holland, which were founded by the Société de Bienfaisance, showing the practical advantages and blessings resulting from a proper application of the bequests of good men; and we are glad to state that a society, similar in constitution and identical in its objects with that of the Dutch Société de Bienfaisance, is now established in Scotland, and only wants the means to render itself as extensively useful and effective as its Dutch prototype.

In 1846, the great agricultural calamities which entailed famine upon every nation in Europe, drew men's eyes more particularly to the condition of the peasantry, and induced a more minute examination of the processes of agriculture practised by those upon whom the community is dependent for the staple of food. The condition of the Highland population, as revealed in 1846, produced a warm and active sympathy in the breasts of our countrymen generally, and ample means were subscribed in order to alleviate their distress, as had heretofore been done during seasons of calamity. The spontaneous benevolence of the wealthy produced a large sum of money, which was to be expended in bettering the condition of

the Highland people; this sum the committee, who assume its distribution, have expended and are expending in the arbitrary finite manner, obviously to the deterioration, in both morals and physical condition, of the Scottish Highland peasantry. A thorough knowledge of what was really requisite for the advantage and wellbeing of the community, induced a few enlightened philanthropists to associate themselves, in order to really better the condition of the people, and these individuals, in 1846, formed themselves into the Scottish Patriotic Society, for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes.'

The object of this society is to lend itself in every way to the promotion of the wellbeing of the labouring classes of this country; not confining itself to the advancement of capital for the establishment of a higher status of condition, but pointing out all the best plans suggested by science and experience for constantly improving the state of the people. In the first place, the society seeks to create and preserve, in all its integrity, a high feeling of self-respect amongst the peasantry. It does not offer gratuitously to support them in idleness, or to maintain them in their present truly low social and physical condition, but it seeks to inspire them with a sense of their own capacities for improvement, and to assist and direct them in their laudable labours of self-elevation. This society has recommended itself to the favourable consideration of the most intelligent and benevolent landed proprietors in Scotland. It is patronised by the Queen, Prince Albert, the Duke of Sutherland, and many other persons of the highest rank among the aristocracy; and its sub-committees are composed of many of the most active and zealous of Scotchmen, who have rendered themselves well known by their good deeds. To the peasantry, the society presents all the most improved modes of agriculture. The methods of working, draining, manuring, and cropping particular soils, are explained to them, and if they wish to become borrowers from the society of a sum of money, for the purpose of improving their garden patches or crofts, their recognition of the committee's plans of working is indispensable to their receiving the same. The propaga tion and feeding of bees, of rabbits, pigs, and poultry, arc explained, and the profit likely to accrue from these almost inexpensive procedures are explained to the people; the society also pointing out the easiest and best methods of disposing of their produce. The state of the homes of the poor is also a chief object of the society's attention; and they offer every assistance in their power to increase the comforts and sanitary state of the people's dwellings, as well as offering premiums for cleanliness and neatness. The competitive emulative feeling is not one, however, which the society would seek to render the basis or impulse of a higher condition for the people. It would rather build their welfare upon that high moral sense of duty and utility, which might almost be styled a religious sentiment or principle. It is not intended that John should strive to be sober, intelligent, and industrious, because James would otherwise become more respectable and comfortable than he; but it is sought to infuse into each and all the knowledge that it is right as well as profitable to be so, and therefore that sobriety, cleanliness, and industry are delightful for their own sake.

There is not a subject connected with rustic life and rural economy which the members of this truly philanthropic and noble society do not take cognizance of, and which they do not purpose to furnish the means of improving. The Patriotic Society does not confine itself to educating and assisting the people, but it addresses itself to the benevolence and self-interest of the landowners. It urges upon them to grant to the labourers, crofts or gardens on lease, and to offer them every encouragement in their endeavours at self-support. In this recommendation of a universal garden or croft system, in the rural districts, is involved a fundamental principle in our agrarian economy which ought not to be lost sight of; that is, the people's right to the land. The Court of Session declared, in 1815, that the poor have as good a right to support from the land as the landlord has to his rents, so

that the only thing for the landowners to determine is, whether a portion of the land shall be set aside for this purpose or a portion of their rents. The former system involves no loss but rather a gain to both parties. The peasant maintains his independence, and his ability to support himself and those depending on him, without parish aid; at the same time paying a rent to the man who would otherwise be constrained to yield him a maintenance. A system of gardens and crofts for cottars, and those semi-agricultural tailors, shoemakers, weavers, and other craftsmen who live in country villages, would extinguish pauperism, increase the independence and comforts of the people, and refine as well as elevate their sentiments.

Aware that a city is not sufficient to develope the faculties of man, and sensible that so long as people are confined and pent up in close dark alleys, so long shall they be depraved, the society purposes to procure for working men in cities little plots of ground in the environs, in which they can spend their leisure hours profitably in every sense of the word. This enlightened proposition, founded upon an imperative requirement of human nature, has everything to recommend it to the hearts and reason of the community. The only desideratum will be the acquirement of land conveniently for working it out. We believe that a vast amount of the demoralization of cities is attributable to the dissociating of the people from what may be termed the poetry of life. We do not say that the population of the country is more moral on an average than that of the towns, but this is no argument against our proposition. The rustic has been neglected in his condition as well as the citizen, although perhaps in a different degree. We never see a sickly plant drooping over the rims of a broken tea-pot but we feel a pang of sorrow. Every such fading flower is a memento of a beautiful and humanising desire, which, not finding legitimate exercise in some little garden plot, such as that proposed by the Patriotic Society, seeks enjoyment in theatres, and skittle-grounds, and other places, where semblances of the country are presented in immoral society, or where flowers and fruits are too frequently the accompaniments to low gambling and drinking bouts. The idea of garden allotments in the neighbourhood of cities is one worthy of an age of advancement and high practical philanthropy, for it supplies to the people, who are discarding the more immoral habits of a former time, something to fall back upon, in lieu of the tap-room and skittle-ground. Healthful recreation, the cultivation and companionship of flowers, the production of edible vegetables, and the hum of bees, may be enjoyed by the working man during his summer evenings, beneath his own vine and fig tree, for a very small charge of rent; and these are what the Patriotic Society seeks to direct the people's attention to, and to secure for them, as a substitute for pleasures which involve a loss of money, self-respect, health, morality, and comfort.

In accordance with their plans, the Society has rented the portion of a field in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and on the 14th of February last about a hundred and fifty working men assembled, and took possession of their little allotments, which they hold at an annual rental of from three shillings upwards, according to the size of the lot. We have visited this interesting little system of embryo gardens more than once, and can perceive the ploughed field changing its aspect to that of fenced and well-defined gardens. They are to be wrought exclusively by spade husbandry, and we trust that, as an experiment, as well as a source of pleasure, health, and enjoyment to the workmen, they will prove eminently successful. This piece of land, which is situated upon the Queensferry Road, being the western part of a field immediately to the west of Mr Wright's nursery, is rather distant from the city, and this is the only circumstance that we see can affect the successful issue of the plan. The men who rent the plots will be constrained to walk a good distance in order to reach them, and unless they are all the more ardent, this of itself might be considered a great expenditure of labour.

If land could be procured in more convenient situations, we have no doubt that the number of eager applicants for lots would be greatly increased; as it is, there is no disposition on the part of those holding them to allow them to be neglected.

The Scottish Patriotic Society has nothing political in it, if its objects are not really more essentially political than those propositions of government which have been dignified with the name of politics. It seeks to cure, as far as associated humanity can, the evils that are superinduced by ignorance, crime, and poverty, without regard to anything of a politico-partizan or sectarian nature. Its objects, stated seriatim, are to improve the husbandry of crofters by introducing better methods of cultivation; to promote the field-garden system; to improve the cottages and gardens of the peasantry, and the residences of the labouring classes in towns. This society proposes the introduction of agricultural education into the general elementary schools of Scotland, and it seeks the establishment of self-supporting agricultural schools, where needed, upon the plan of that founded by the late William Allen at Linfield. It offers gratuitous information to parties desirous of emigrating; seeks the extension of Scottish fisheries, together with the safety and welfare of those employed upon them, and promises to promote the establishment of district loan funds for assisting the industrious under temporary difficulties. In order to carry out these highly noble and beneficial expedients, district auxiliary associations of the philanthropic have been and are being formed, and the society publishes a monthly magazine, full of information respecting the actual position and difficulties of the lower classes, and of facts and suggestions relative to the improvement of their condition. We would more immediately, however, direct attention to the city garden-allotment system, which has just been begun in Edinburgh under the Society's auspices, and we urge upon those who have the power to render such a system of healthy and profitable employment of the workman's leisure hours as extensive as possible. The man who has been born and educated in the city, and whose tastes and habits have been formed in a purely artificial state, may smile at the importance which we attach to this plan of moral reform; but it is the natural and only really efficient plan of producing and sustaining a generally high condition of refinement among the people. Everything vigorous is produced in the country-vigorous plants and vigorous men. A city confines and shuts up man; he learns almost nothing in it from observation; all he knows is the result of a process of secondary instruction, not of education proper. New discoveries in science, in natural history, and the physical sciences, are not made in menageries, nor conservatories, nor museums; they are made in the country, by countrymen, who are savants and philosophers when in cities expounding their experiences. The city artizan is, above all other members of the community, cut off from contact with rural phenomena. The professional man has his summer vacation, during which he rusticates; the wealthy man his town and country residence; but the workman is doomed to a grim immurement within the city from birth to death, and the only glimpses he obtains of the country are at the expense of that religious sentiment which induces men to meet in worship. Constant immurement in cities inevitably produces human deterioration; men, like plants, grow sickly in towns, no matter whether they are nursed in luxurious rooms, or sent to darkle in cellars; and were it not that there is a constant influx of the rural population to the manufacturing cities, we verily believe that the people of the towns would soon become mentally and physically pignies, as in too many cases they are.

There are thousands of men in the Scottish towns whose minds are full of youth's day-dreams-of flowers, and trees, and green meads, and birds, and bees, whose hearts will leap for joy at the Society's proposition. They will be able to return to perhaps their early tastes of flower-culture, without being constrained to drink

whisky in the bower where they go to inhale the fragrance of thyme and sweetwilliam; and while they produce a healthy and necessary assortment of vegetables for food, they will also imbibe purer air into their systems and purer thoughts into their minds, than ever were or will be obtained in the pothouse or cockpit. The gardenallotment system has already done much good where it has been introduced, and now, as the experiment is being tried with ourselves, we hope to be able to speak of it hereafter in recommendatory terms, and to say that the Scottish Patriotic Society has been encouraged to prosecute and extend the scheme.

GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY.

APPARENT POWERS OF REASONING IN BIRDS.

In places frequented by the common blackbird and thrush, you may sometimes see a stone, which may be called the butcher's-block of these birds. To this they carry the snails (Helix aspersa, H. hortensis and memoralis) which they collect, and which they seem to know that their bills, without the aid of such a fulcrum, would find some difficulty in piercing. A still higher effort of reflection, and it may be said of invention, is related by Mr Yarrell ('British Birds,' vol. iii., p. 465) of a gull, which, for the first time, had made a lark its prey, but found some difficulty in devouring it. After several ineffectual efforts to swallow it, he paused for a moment; and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he ran off at full speed to a pan of water, shook the bird about in it until well soaked, and immediately gulped it down without further trouble. Since that time he invariably has recourse to the same expedient in similar cases. It is amusing to observe the proceedings of the cormorant, shag (Pelicanus carbo P. graculus), and the looms (Colymbi), in dealing with the refractory subjects which they sometimes fish up in the course of their researches under water. If the prize be a crab, it is taken to the surface, and, fully aware of the danger in attempting to swallow it whole, it is there dropped, and a smart peck of the bill is made at the legs. These are either knocked off by the blow, or the crab is induced to throw them off, according to the known practice of these creatures when injured. Each of these is then seized and swallowed in succession; and the body, by this time become a mere lump, is gulped down last of all. A lance or shanny, if caught across the mouth or held by the tail, is flung aloft, and caught in a convenient posture as it falls. If the prey be a flounder or plaice, it is thrown on the surface, and pecked so violently as to break or dislocate the firm arrangement of transverse bones, and thus deprive the muscles of their strong contractile power, by which so rigid an obstruction was thrown in the way of swallowing. It is then rolled up into a cylinder, and easily disposed of. A close observer of nature informed me, that his attention was directed to a cormorant, which appeared to be much distended about the neck and throat; but, while watching its proceedings, the bird discovered his presence, and endeavoured to escape, by which means its attention became distracted, and an eel started from its jaws, and employed much effort to effect its retreat. Unwilling to lose so valuable a morsel, the bird pursued it, and was again successful; but it was not now in haste to ingulph its prey. Repeatedly and violently did it peck the fish through the whole of its length, and then again seized it across its bill; but, still finding it capable of too much activity, it continued to peck it, until the whole of its powers of contortion were subdued, and there was no farther risk of its again effecting an escape from its dungeon.-Illustrations of Instinct by Jonathan Couch.

MODE OF BREEDING LEECHES IN SCINDE.

The breeding of leeches, even in Europe, is kept a seeret in that quarter of the world. The breeding of them was at one period almost entirely confined to a tribe of gipsies, but the secret got known, and went abroad. In Great Britain, even to this day, the best descriptions of leeches are procured from the Continent. In Ceylon, where

the variety of leeches is more numerous, perhaps, than in any part of the world, the propagation of the sort used in phlebotomy is made a secret of. In India, the leech-propagators do all they can to keep the knowledge to themselves. This has not, however, prevented one of our most accomplished naturalists and botanists from propagating these valuable reptiles with the greatest success, so much so, indeed, as to be a great saving to government in furnishing the hospitals. Major Blenheim is the gentleman to whom we allude, and to whom we take this opportunity of returning thanks for the perusal of his curious and very interesting paper on this subject. Burned earthen vessels, commonly called 'cottee pots,' are used for this purpose, of globular shape or form, being three feet in circumference, one ditto in height, and with mouth six inches in diameter, each pot being two-thirds filled with stiff black earth, containing a good portion of clay. To this add four handfuls of finelypowdered dry goat or cow dung, two handfuls of dried The vessel is then filled to within three inches of the mouth hemp leaves, finely powdered, with two ounces of assafoetida. with water, and the whole mixed with a wand or stick. Leeches of full growth, and of the largest size, are required for propagation, varying, perhaps, from three to five inches in length, after being placed on, and glutted from, the human body. The leeches, to the number of nineteen or twenty, are put into each vessel; an earthen cover is then placed over the mouth; and the whole smeared over with a coating of cow dung and earth, and placed in a sheltered spot, free from wind and sun. month, on the cover being moved off, about twenty cacoons After the space of twenty-five days or a will be found, of the size of a sparrow's egg, and longer, and of a spongy nature. On being carefully torn open with the finger, from five to fifteen small leeches will into which a table-spoonful of sugar has been thrown. After emerge. All of these are then placed in a pot of water, ten days it is requisite to feed them with blood from the human body for a period of three months, when they will have obtained the usual size for application. During the warm months, after a respite of ten days or so, the breeding leeches can again be placed as above described. The leech appears to live about eighteen months, and any number can be procured in this way.-Colonial Magazine.

EXTRAORDINARY INVASION OF Leeches.

The young of the leech are produced from cacoons deposited by the mother towards the end of summer. The winter is passed by our common horse-leech in a state of torpidity, in the mud at the bottom of the ponds or ditches where it resides. This habit gave origin, on one occasion, to a somewhat singular scene, which we chanced to witness. On the morning of the 27th March, 1838, a part of the footway on one of the most crowded thoroughfares adjoining the town of Belfast, was so covered with leeches, that it was scarcely possible to walk without trampling them under foot. So great was their abundance, that some of the passers-by remarked that it seemed as though a shower of leeches had fallen. They extended for about a hundred paces in this profusion; on both sides of this space they were less numerous. The phenomenon continued for the two following mornings, but with diminished numbers. A slight examination served to explain its cause. The ditch on the side of the fence which separated the footway from the adjacent fields had been cleaned out the preceding day. The leeches had been buried in the slime, and on this being placed on the top of the fence, they had struggled out, and spread themselves over the adjoining footway.-Paterson's Introduction to Zoology.

ANIMALS OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLD.

Mr J. W. Dawson observes (in Jameson's Journal,' No. 84), 'It may be remarked, in general, that there is no animal, frequenting in Europe the cultivated grounds, and either beneficial or noxious to man, which has not indigenous species in America—an exact representative, filling its place in the economy of nature, and often, in a natural historical point of view, closely related to it. This results from the general sameness of arrangement in the system of nature in the Old and New World; and if studied in its

THE JOHN-CROW VULTURE.

seen.

HUMMING BIRDS.

Wherever a creeping vine opens its fragrant cluster, or wherever a tree-flower blooms, may these little things be In the garden or in the woods, over the water, everywhere they are darting about-of all sizes, from one that might easily be mistaken for a different variety of bird, to the Hermit (T. rufigaster), whose body is not half the size of the bees buzzing about the same sweets. The blossoms of the inga-tree, as before remarked, bring them in great numbers about the rosinhas of the city, and the collector may shoot as fast as he can load, the day long. Sometimes they are seen chasing each other in sport, with a rapidity of flight and intricacy of path the eye is puzzled to follow. Again, circling round and round, they rise high in mid air, then dart off like light to some distant attraction. Perched upon a little limb, they smooth their plumes, and seem to delight in their dazzling hues; then, starting off leisurely, they skim along, stopping capriciously to kiss the coquetting flowerets. Often two meet in inid air, and furiously fight, their crests and the feathers upon their throats all erected and blazing, and altogether pictures of the most violent rage. Several times we saw them battling with large black bees, who frequent the same flowers, and may be supposed often to interfere provokingly. Like lightning our little heroes would come down, but the coat of shining mail would ward their furious strokes; again and again would they renew the attack, until their anger had expended itself by its own fury, or until the apathetic bee, once roused, had put forth powers that drove the invader from the field. A boy in the city several times brought us humming-birds, alive, in a glass cage. He had brought them down while, standing motionless in the air, they rifled the flowers, by balls of clay blown from a hollowed tube.-Voyage up the River Amazon.

PRODUCTIVENESS AND NURTURE OF SILK-WORMS.

The time that elapses while the worm is undergoing its changes varies according to the state of the weather and the quantity of nourishment with which it is supplied. The Chinese are most particular on this head, as on this depends the quantity of silk which the worm will produce. The Chinese calculate that the same number of insects which would, if they attained their full size in twenty-five

twenty ounces if their growth occupied thirty days, and only ten if forty days. During the first twenty-four hours of its existence the Chinese feed it every half hour, or forty

eight times; the second day thirty times: and so on, reducing the meals as the worm grows.-Martin's China.

SWARM OF LADYBIRDS.

A correspondent of the Athenæum,' No. 1035, writes, that on Friday, August 8, 1847, he was at Broadstairs, in the Isle of Thanet. The wind was in the north-east; and a good deal of rain fell, after a drought in that district of six months' duration. On the Saturday it became fine, with a strong wind from the south-west. Early in the morning a few ladybirds made their appearance. Their number kept increasing during the whole of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, when the esplanade and cliffs on the west side of the town were literally covered with them. They were evidently borne upon the wind, and were most numerous at the edges of the cliffs-as if they caught there as a last refuge before being carried out to sea again. The stalks of the dried plants were covered with these insects; and the stem of the Dipsacus centaurus, and other plants, looked as if they were borne down by a crop of red berries The white dresses of the ladies attracted them especially, and gave no little annoyance to those who were afraid of them. They are, however, perfectly harmless; and, excepting for their disagreeable smell, need not be avoided. These creatures are carnivorous, and, of course, could not find food in such immense quantities; and many of them found were reduced to the sad extremity of feeding on their departed friends, whose dead bodies were strewed about the paths in all directions. They were preyed upon in great numbers by a black beetle. They were not all of one species. The common one, with a yellow body and seven black spots, was most abundant; next to that came the species with two black spots; the species with nine spots was scarcer still; and there were only a few specimens of one with a black body and orange spots. The intensity of their colouring varied from a light yellow to a deep orange. The ladybirds continued at Broadstairs till Thursday, August 12, when a strong wind from the south setting in, cleared the whole district. They, however, found a restingplace at Margate, where, in a line from the fort to the railway terminus, they covered everything, and the air was filled with them. Up to this time none, or not an unusual number, of these creatures had been seen at Ramsgate; but on Saturday, the wind having got into the east on the previous evening, they began to appear there, and on that evening they seemed to be as numerous at Ramsgate as at Broadstairs and Margate. On the 17th and 18th of August, there was a smaller swarm of these insects at BroadStairs, the wind blowing in a north-westerly direction. From several accounts in the Daily News,' of the 16th and 17th of August, it appears that on Friday, August 13, the same insects were observed at Southend; on the same day in great numbers in London; and on the following Saturday and Sunday at Brighton. Large flights of these creatures are not uncommon. Various swarms of them have been recorded as occurring at Brighton, where they were supposed to have been carried from the neighbouring hop-grounds, as the larva of the ladybird feeds on the aphides, which are so destructive of the hop-plant. On the present occasion, however, it appears that these insects must have been brought by the south-west wind from the continent. That the direction of the wind determined their appearance, is evident from the fact that they disappeared at Broadstairs on the day they were seen at Margate, and were not found at Margate after their appearance at Ramsgate. The cause of the swarming of these insects is probably a scarcity of their natural food during the prevalence of a strong wind, which, sweeping over a large track of the earth's surface, carries along with it all who are disposed to go. That this is the case seems confirmed by the fact, that at first these insects only appeared by degrees; a few arriving, and the number gradually increasing, on a particular spot.