If people were to argue with us till doomsday,we would never admit or believe that ANY woman habited as our English women now are, could be "modest." Their seutiments are unmistakeably indexed by their faces. Once, we remember-happy days those! things were very different. Modesty, innocence, moral worth, and purity, were recog nised as social "virtues." Now they have become crimes. Alas! what have not our fathers, mothers, and brothers to answer for! They see it all, and yet go with the stream.* As for the men-resolved not to be outdone by the women, they too have undergone a metamorphosis. It is true they have not plastered their hair all over their foreheads and cheeks. This, they feared, would be a trifle too feminine. But they have discarded the razor from chin and lip; and they are now fast becoming "perfect pictures" of baboons. To call our men "beasts," would be no libel on humanity. They are so very closely assimilated to the monkey, that very soon we expect to see some of them "caged up by mistake. All glory be to the great master-Punch, for having so completely shown the filthy fellows up. If they cannot take the hint, at all events they are legitimate objects for scorn and derision. Their names are legion. Our correspondent "WALTER" has earned himself an undying reputation for the noble stand he has made against this national abomination. We will aid him and our other allies to the utmost, in putting down such diabolical attempts to efface all traces of humanity. *We cannot help cleaving to the "old school" in the matter of sterling worth. We are far from being an enemy to progress quite the reverse; but let us go on safely and surely. We love the sentiment of the old poet : Woman is loveliest when retired; AND MEN BY WOMEN ARE REFINED. This is what it ought to be, now more than ever; but is it so? No; but exactly the opposite. The "refinement" of our modern women may be judged of, as Punch remarks, by their dressthey are made up" of outsides. "A recommendation" having been made to the guards, firemen, &c., of the Scottish Central Railway, to allow Nature to have her own way with chin and upper lip, they have discarded their razors; and they have recommended it to the general adoption of their brethren in similar service throughout the kingdom!-Liverpool Albion. The appearance presented by these savages is said to be truly disgusting-so much so, that passengers are reluctant to speak to them, or ask them questions. And yet our nobility and gentry are following suit!"-ED. K. J. THE VILLAGE LOVERS. I watch their mien of trembling joy, And she a graceful village maiden. His proud look hints, her blushes tell, What bliss begins when school-time closes; He shielded her when snowflakes fell, And now 'tis almost time for roses. Have lips yet given voice to heart? I know not-but each day shows clearer How conscious blushes draw apart The steps resistless Love draws nearer. Their world is changed; historic names For her are shrunk to merest zero; And poet-loves and novel-fames Are poor beside the living hero. For him-all sweets of earth and air, The softest breath of soft May morning, Too coarse, too harsh, too common are To match that girlish beauty's dawning. The walk upon enchanted ground; The school, the streets, are lands elysian; A song of spheres is every sound; Each glance a beatific vision. O Teacher, sage! in vain you pore To village youth and village maiden. As full, as fresh, as pure, as joyous. II. How soft the May-time hours steal on; How calmly flows the tide of time O'er all the wealth of smiles and dreams, Yet not in grief the end is told, Who knows what gathering dangers died From "Putnam's Monthly Magazine." AS OUR PAGES are expected to contain everything connected with the Cuckoo, a bird Messrs. Doubleday, Bree, & Co. labor so hard to prove "unnatural," we gladly register all that tends to upset their ridiculous and old wives' theory. We have elaborately treated of the whole question in former numbers; and therefore now only add the testimony of Mr. Meyers as to their general habits. It is copied from his "British Birds:" "The Cuckoo is now so well known by every one, that we need only remark, that, besides visiting the British Isles, this bird is met with as far north as Norway, during the summer, in Europe. Asia, and many parts of Africa, are also enlivened by its pleasing mellow call-note. The cuckoo makes its appearance with us in the month of April, and is generally either the forerunner of summer weather, or travels hither with it. The male is generally a day or two in advance of the female. Their journey is performed during the night; and they frequently return to take up their abode in the neighborhood occupied by them in at former season. The locality usually chosen by the cuckoo is-wherever there are trees, without being at all particular as to the species, or of what age or size they may be. We have seen these birds most numerous where the hedge-rows are very thick, and plentifully intermixed with forest or timber trees; about rich pasture land, and in sheltered and secluded situations. But more than one pair is rarely seen within the bounds of a certain district for though these birds will live peacefully as neighbors, yet they do not allow of trespassers on their hunting grounds, and intruders are generally punished for their temerity. The cuckoo is a wild and timid bird, very strong on the wing; but when on the ground, apparently helpless and clumsy. It therefore suits this bird better to fly even a short distance, than to reach it by hopping on the ground. Its perch is generally on a strong branch of a tree, or occasionally on a post or gate in a field, from whence the cuckoo can look out for its food or enemy. In case more than one pair of these birds are frightened or started on the wing, they show their unsociability very much, by not flying away together like most other birds; but each pair separates from the rest and takes its own course; although the female is never far behind the male, who is careful not to desert pleasing call of the cuckoo, in the spring of the year, stands in the place of the songs of other birds, and helps to complete the concert of nature.* This call has furnished the bird with its name. When the bird is courting and gets in ecstacies, it sometimes lengthens its call to cuckookook, and this frequently twice or three times repeated. In the pairing season the cuckoo begins its call soon after midnight, and repeats it more than a hundred times in succession without changing its perch; after which it rests for a time, recommences, and the morning-light reminds the bird that the then again rests; and thus continues until time has arrived for him to break his fast; of food. and he then starts off on the wing in search in the air, and they produce a sound like These birds also call out, while flying high "Gwa, wa, wa," which is considered by some as an indication of the near approach of rainy weather; but whether this opinion undertake to determine. The cuckoo feeds has any foundation in facts, we will not on insects and their larvæ; by choice, however, on hairy caterpillars in all stages, cockchafers, grasshoppers, butterflies, and moths. And, like the hawks and owls, the cuckoo the usual form of pellets. casts up the indigestible parts of its food in How the female cuckoo manages to deposit been satisfactorily described; so much, howher egg in the nest of another bird, has not ever, is known-that the female goes singly about this business, without her mate being near. Whether this is for the purpose of watching her opportunity, or for going more stealthily about her designs, is still an unanswered question. The number of eggs varies from four to six; but these are laid at deposited by the cuckoo during the season such distant intervals, that some may be found in May, and others as late as July. It is insisted on, by some persons, that the cuckoo sucks the eggs of other birds; and to strengthen this assertion, they state that they shot a cuckoo that was actually in the explanation of this is, that the female cuckoo act of carrying off an egg. The most probable was carrying her own egg, which she had laid on the ground, to the nest of some other bird; able to detect the whole of the proceedings and, although no one has hitherto been that her egg is smuggled into the warbler's of the cuckoo, it is possibly by these means nest. The egg of the cuckoo is very small in comparison with other birds of its size; but the reason for this is obvious, and it must be considered as a beautiful provision of Nature. *Both the male and female utter the cry of Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" The egg of this bird is readily distinguished from all others, by the black specks and scratches on its surface. It is very wonderful that small birds of divers kinds should be so far imposed upon as to spend their time and affection on such a disproportionately large and unsightly thing as a young cuckoo. We have watched them, however, and have ascertained the facts, even with a mature yellow bunting and a young cuckoo in a cage." What will Messrs. Bree, Doubleday, and Co., say to this? In-door naturalists cannot, now, have it all their own way. "Facts are stubborn things" for them to contend against; and their musty records are of little Nobody will now believe them. Why should they? Nature wants not such apologists! use. PEOPLE WITH gratulating themselves on their good-fortune; in bewailing their ill-fortune. Certain it is, that whilst people with large families are occupied the prices charged for the necessaries of life are exorbitantly high. This teaches us the value of plenty. SMALL FAMILIES are now con However, things are by no means so bad as they are represented to be. Comparative scarcity has been made the stepping-stone to avarice and rapacity of no common kind. We have heard, too, of a number of wicked capitalists, who have bought up some thousands of barrels of flourdetermined not to sell to the poor until they allude to go to church on Sunday, and utter the can realise famine prices. Some of the men we responses! We wish it were not "libellous tell the truth-else should their names be dragged into public view. Fiends are they in human shape, whose punishment, though delayed, will ere long inevitably overtake them. They live detested, and will no doubt die accursed. A bitter Christmas to them! say we. to There can be no doubt that we shall require large supplies of foreign grain. There can be no doubt that we must be prepared to pay, compared with the last few years, good prices. But all the experience of the past, and all the information we can obtain of the present and the future, induce us to regard the prevailing notions on the subject as extravagant and greatly exaggerated. There is a point of view in which this subject is to be regarded at the present moment, which has been entirely overlooked. When the scarcity of 1846 overtook us, we were habitually small importers of grain; yet all at once, although France, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, and the Mediterranean States were equally or more in want, and competing in the same markets, we were able to import, chiefly in the few latter months of 1846, 2,344,000 quarters of wheat and flour alone, and in 1847 no fewer than 4,464.000 quarters. Now we are habitually and every year importers of about 4,000,000 quarters. For three years prior to 1846 we imported as follows: therefore, though we must be prepared to pay comparatively high prices, we may consider ourselves safe from those extreme prices, and the derangement consequent thereupon, which the extravagant estimates to which we have alluded, point. And there is at least this consolation-as America will be our chief market of supply, and will most profit by it, we may look forward to a continued large demand from that quarter for our manufactures in exchange; and which, by affording good employment to our people, will at least mitigate the inconvenience of our own rather deficient harvest. ZOOLOGICAL FOLK LORE.-No. III. BY J. M'INTOSH; MEM. ENT. SOC., ETC. (Continued from Page 352.) add IN ADDITION TO WHAT we have already said about popular superstition, we may the following as being equally absurd. No. 22. BEES.-In ancient times it was considered by the awe-stricken idolaters, as a "boding prodigy" if bees settled upon a temple, a tree devoted to the gods, or even (according to Pliny) upon an ordinary house. Juvenal thus exclaims (Satire XIII. 99):Here if one just, or e holy man be found, A present miracle ! we shout around. Not more dismayed should monstrous forms appear, Or earth-born fish arrest the ploughing steer; Or swarming bees portending ills to Rome, Hang clustering from a consecrated dome. : The 10th of August is considered in some parts of England their jubilee, and those who are seen working on that day are called Quakers. Omens were wont to be taken from their swarming; and their settling on the mouths of Plato and Pindar was taken as a sure presage of their future eloquence and poetry. The Church of Rome, too, has the following passage in her Breviary:"Peter Nolascus, born of a noble family at Recordi, near Carcasona, in France, excelled in eminent love towards his neighbors; the presage of whose virtue was, that while he, yet an infant, was crying in his cradle, a swarm of bees flew to him and constructed a honey-comb in his right hand!" In the south of England, we are gravely informed that if they should swarm upon a stake merely set in the ground, one of the family is sure to die! No. 23. SNAKES' SKINS.-The good folks of Devon consider the skin of these reptiles very useful in extracting thorns, &c., from the body; but, unlike other remedies, it is repellant, not attractive, therefore it must be applied on the opposite side to that which the thorn entered! 24. POULTRY.-If the Cock crows with his face towards the door or window, it is a sure sign that you will be visited during the day by some stranger. The crowing of the 25. CATS.-In many parts of England, May cats are considered unlucky; and it is said that they suck the breath of children! If the cat frisks about the house in an unusually lively manner, windy or stormy weather is approaching! In some parts of Ireland, blood drawn from a black cat's ear, and rubbed on the part affected, is a certain cure for St. Anthony's fire! In the palmy days of ancient of these animals with or without a design. Egypt, it was death for a person to kill one Diodorus relates an incident to which he was an eye-witness during his stay in Egypt. design, killed a cat, the exasperated populace A Roman having inadvertently, and without of the king, nor the terror of the Roman ran to his house; and neither the authority name, could rescue the unfortunate criminal! When a cat died in a house, the owner of the house shaved his eye-brows. The dead cats were then carried into consecrated houses to be embalmed; after which they interred them at Bubostis, a considerable city in Lower Egypt. Even at the present time, we are informed that cats are treated with the greatest care in that benighted country. At Damascus, we are informed by Baumgarten, there is a hospital for cats; and Brown, in his history of Jamaica, says a cat is a dainty dish among the negroes. In England, during Alfred's time, (he reigned from 871 to about 901,) laws were made to preserve and fix the prices of certain animals; amongst which the cat was included. in no country were they worshipped as in Egypt. "Amongst us," says Cicero," it is very common to see temples robbed, and statues carried off, but it was never known that any person in Egypt ever abused a crocodile, an ibis, or a cat; for its inhabitants would have suffered the most extreme torments rather than be guilty of such sacrilege." Such was the reverence which the Egyptians had towards their animals, that in an extreme famine they chose to eat one another rather than feed upon their imagined deities. But To read of animals, and vile reptileshonored with religious worship, placed in temples, maintained with great care and at an extravagant expense (Diodorus states that in his time the expense amounted to no less than one hundred thousand crowns, or £22,500), and that those who murdered them were put to death-are absurdities which we, at this distance of time, can scarcely believe; and yet we have the evidence of all antiquity respecting the truth of it. Well might the satirist exclaim Who has not heard, when Egypt's realms are named, What monster gods her frantic sons have framed! "You enter," says Lucian," into a magnificent temple, every part of which glitters with gold and silver; you then look attentively for a god, and are cheated with a stork, an ape, or a cat; a just emblem," adds the above author, "of too many palaces; the masters of which are far from being the brightest ornaments of them." Bright summer flies on golden wings The linnet now no longer sings The fairest flowers have faded all; The winter nights, when happy hearts To make life's cup more sweet! W. FRUIT, ITS USE AND ABUSE. A MEDICAL MAN, whose name has not gone forth, has published his opinion upon the propriety of eating or not eating fruit, lest evil consequences should ensue therefrom. He commences his argument thus: Because bowel complaints usually prevail latter end of summer and autumn, when fruit most during the hot season of the year-the is most abundant, and in tropical climates where fruits are met with in greatest variety-it is inferred, according to the post hoc propter hoc mode of reasoning, that the one is the consequence of the other. It were about as reasonable to attribute the occasional occurrences of sea-scurvy in the navy to the use of lemon-juice, lime-juice, or potatoes. These articles are powerfully antiscorbutic, and so are ripe fruits antibilious; and diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera are complaints in which acrid and alkaline biliary secretions are prominent conditions. I have seen many cases of dysentery, obstinate diarrhoea, and liver disease, in people who have been long resident in tropical climates; and, from the history which I have been able to obtain respecting their habits of diet, I have come to the conclusion that these diseases were induced and aggravated, not by the light vegetable and fruit diet most in use among the natives, but because Englishmen usually carry out with them their European mode of living. They take large quantities of nitrogenous and carbonaceous food, in the shape of meat and wines or spirits, rather than the light native food, as rice and juicy fruits, and the vegetable stimulants and condiments, the native peppers and spices so abundantly provided by Nature. It is well known that, though large quantities of animal oils and fats, wines, spirits, and malt liquors, which contain a large amount of carbon, may be consumed with comparative impunity in cold climates and in winter, when the carbonaceous matter gets burnt off by the more active exercise and respiration; yet, in hot climates and in suminer this element is retained in the liver, and ultimately gives rise to congestion of that organ and its consequences-diarrhoea, dysentery, and bilious disorders. Though in extensive practice for 15 years, in a district abounding with orchards and gardens, I cannot remember an instance in which I could distinctly trace any very serious disorder to fruit as a cause; though one might reasonably expect some mischief from the amount of unripe and acid trash often consumed by the children of the poor I would not be supposed to advocate either immoderate quantities of the most wholesome |