Chapter II: Part 2

In comparison with the human voice, that of animals seems poor indeed. The barking of the dog, the mewing of the cat, the bleating of sheep, cannot be called language, in the proper sense. Yet the larynx of these creatures is on the same plan as that of man. Among monkeys the resemblance is perfect. To all appearance the impossibility of speaking is due to the formation of the lips and tongue. In 1715 Leibnitz announced to the French Academy that he had met with a common peasant's dog that could repeat thirty words after its master. In spite of such an authority, we must always say when we most admire the intelligence of this faithful companion: 'He only wants words.' So well endowed with memory, affection, and intelligence, he can only express his joy by sharp, short expirations of air through the glottis. Howling is a prolonged note in the pharynx, excited by deep grief or pain. Yet they in common with many other animals can communicate with each other in a marvellous manner when they wish to organise an expedition. A dead bullock was lying in a waste far from all habitations, when a solitary dog, attracted by the smell, came and fed upon it; immediately he returned to the village and called together his acquaintances. In less than an hour the bones were picked clean by the troop.

Opportunities for studying the language of wild animals are rare: they fly from man, and when in captivity they become nearly silent, only uttering a few cries or murmurs. Travellers have sometimes been able to watch the graceful movements of the smaller African apes. Living in the branches of trees, they descend with great prudence. An old male, who is the chief, climbs to the top and looks all around; if satisfied, he utters guttural sounds to tranquillise his band; but if he perceive danger, there is a special cry, an advertisement which does not deceive, and immediately they all disperse. On one occasion a naturalist watched a solitary monkey as he discovered an orange-tree laden with fruit. Without returning, he uttered short cries; his companions understood the signal, and in a moment they were collected under the tree, only too happy to share its beautiful fruit. Some kinds possess a curious appendage, a sort of aërial pouch, which opens into the interior of the larynx and makes a tremendous sound. These howling apes, also called Stentors, inhabit the deepest forests of the New World; and their cries, according to Humboldt, may be heard at the distance of one or two miles.

If it be ever possible to observe the play of the larynx of animals during the emission of sounds, the subject will be a very curious one. The difficulty seems almost insurmountable, as their goodwill must be enlisted; yet M. Mandl, full of confidence in his use of the laryngoscope, does not despair. After man, among animated nature, the birds occupy the highest rank in nature's concerts; they make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. Cuvier discovered the exact place from which their note issues. They possess a double larynx, the one creating the sounds, the other resounding them: naturalists call the apparatus a drum. Thus two lips form the vocal cords, which are stretched or relaxed by a very complicated action of the muscles. This accounts for the immense variety of sounds among birds, replying to the diversity in the structure of the larynx.

The greater number of small birds have cries of joy or fear, appeals for help, cries of war. All these explosions of voice borrow the sounds of vowels and consonants, and shew how easy and natural is articulation among them. Those species which are distinguished as song-birds have a very complicated vocal apparatus. For the quality of tone, power, brilliancy, and sweetness, the nightingale stands unrivalled; yet it does not acquire this talent without long practice, the young ones being generally mediocre. The parrots which live in large numbers under the brightest suns, have a love for chattering which captivity does not lessen. Attentive to every voice and noise, they imitate them with extraordinary facility; and the phenomenon of their articulating words is still unexplained. It is supposed that there is a peculiar activity in the upper larynx. As a rule, they attach no meaning to what they say; but there are exceptions. When very intelligent and well instructed, these birds--such as Mr Truefitt's late parrot, an account of which appeared in this _Journal_ in 1874--can give a suitable answer to certain questions.

Our notes on this interesting study come to a close. Man is well served by his voice; words are the necessity of every-day life; singing is its pleasure and recreation, whether the performers are human beings or birds.

FOX-HUNTING ON THE MOUNTAINS OF SCOTLAND.

The light of an almost full moon was struggling with the first faint glimmer of dawn one morning late in February as I sprang out of bed and looked through my window. I could see a few fleecy clouds racing across that luminary; and away in the north-east lay a dark bank, speaking of the direction taken by the storm which I had heard at intervals during the night; but otherwise the sky was clear and gave promise of at least a few hours' respite from the almost ceaseless rain of the previous two months. Such being the case, I lost no time in dressing and in calling my companion; and before another day had fairly begun, we were passing through the fresh clear air on our way to the hill, accompanied by two couple of fox-hounds, while an irrepressible terrier who would not be denied found its way to its owner's heels before we had gone many hundred yards.

Foxes in the Highlands are held in very different estimation from the same animal farther south. Death, meted out with all weapons and under all circumstances, is their lot whenever found; and few acts are considered more meritorious or more deserving of public thanks than the destruction of a vixen and her cubs. Little fault can be found with such a state of affairs when it is remembered that hunting is impossible, and that otherwise foxes would increase to such an extent as not only to do great damage to game, but to become a serious tax upon the sheep-farmer, especially during the spring, when quantities of lambs fall victims even under present circumstances. The great extent of many Highland properties and the small number of keepers employed, render it impossible for them to keep the foxes under without assistance; and the result has been the installation of a regular district fox-hunter, whose one employment is to go about from farm to farm accompanied by his hounds and terriers, and kill foxes, on consideration of receiving a toll of so much per score of sheep, as well as free quarters for as long as he chooses to stay.

Such was my companion on this occasion. He deserves, however, a more than general notice. To watch him as he sat over-night by the kitchen-fire, his chin almost resting on his knees, no one would guess, from his bent and stiffened appearance and long white hair, that they were looking at the best hill-man within a radius of fifty miles; a man who on three different occasions had ventured alone on the outlying heights during the worst of a wild snow-storm in search of missing shepherds, and who had succeeded in bringing two of them home alive, despite having to carry one for nearly five miles through drifts out of which no other man in the glen would have had a chance of extricating himself. Although now near sixty years of age, time did not seem to have had any effect upon his physical powers; and while he grumbled and declared himself worn out and unfit for his position, entailing as it did an immense amount of fatigue and hardship, it was well known that the man who could live alongside of old Ian Cameron when once his hounds had settled down to a fox, must not only be of sound wind and limb, but more active than nine-tenths of the young Highlanders in the district.

The hounds also deserve some notice before I enter upon the doings of the day. They were small, very powerfully built animals, with heads and frames much resembling the old Southern hound; and possessing a grand bell-like note; but far too slow to come up to the modern idea of a fox-hound. Indeed, except on some very rare occasions, when a fox had been caught unawares or, as it is usually termed, 'chopped,' neither they nor their immediate ancestors had ever killed one without assistance. Ian had, he told me, first got the strain from the late Lord Eglinton nearly fifty years ago, and had kept it pure from that day to this. It was, however, in terriers that the old man excelled. Talk of the prize-winners of the so-called Skye breed at the dog-shows of the present day! I very much doubt if Ian would have accepted one of them as a gift, while his specimens would no doubt have been contemptuously ignored by any well-regulated judging mind. Long-bodied, short-legged, powerful little animals they were, with rough coarse coats of the thickest of thick hair, each of them able and willing to bolt or half kill a fox single-handed. Their ancestors had originally been brought from the island of Barra, where, in common with all the western islands, the breed supposed to be confined to Skye is found of the utmost purity; and they were as perfect representatives of their class as it would be possible to find anywhere.

Their owner had arrived two days previously at the house of a large sheep-farmer with whom I was staying; and as I knew there were several foxes frequenting the cairns among the high hills, I had arranged to accompany him on this and on subsequent occasions; and I may add, that for those who both can and will run for miles over the wild tops of our Highland hills, and who care for hunting and seeing hounds working when separated from the excitement of hard riding, there are tamer amusements than accompanying a professional fox-hunter on his rounds. On this occasion we had some miles to go before there was much chance of falling in with the object of our search. The wily tods rarely came down to the low ground, where the house and arable portion of the farm were situated, preferring to keep among the almost inaccessible boulders and rocks which strew the surface of many acres on the hill-tops, from whence during the breeding season they made nightly raids against the lambs for miles around. In winter, however, the snow drove them down somewhat, and they took up their quarters in such low-lying cairns as contained rabbits, which, with an occasional white hare, seem to form their principal food, until the advent of spring brings them more easily captured and more toothsome victims. They by no means, however, confined themselves to any one spot, but moved about from cairn to cairn; and it was in the hope of getting on the line of some such prowler and marking him to ground that we were making our present expedition. A finer morning for hunting of any kind it would have been impossible to conceive: a warm south-westerly breeze was blowing, and the air felt more like May than February, while the few remaining clouds were rapidly disappearing, and the newly-risen sun, as yet concealed from us by the intervening mountains, was sparkling on the snow-covered summits of the hills, or pouring down through the glens in long rays of golden light on to the many lochs and woods which, intermingled with cultivated fields, formed a belt of lowlands at our feet stretching to the Western Ocean.

For nearly two hours we pursued our way, mounting higher and higher, until we reached a broad glen, shut in by very high hills, on which were some cairns much affected by the foxes. During this time the old fox-hunter had kept up a continuous stream of talk, quite regardless of the severity of the ascent, which was such in places as to render me glad of the excuse afforded by the glorious view below, for a momentary rest. His theme was foxes, and it may be imagined that after an experience of nearly fifty years he had a good deal to say worth listening to on the subject. One anecdote of a cub I remember. He had been asked by some southern laird to preserve any cubs he could catch, and to send them south to him for turning out; and one spring he succeeded in getting three. They were too young at the time of capture to bear the long journey; but after two months he put the three into a wooden box, nailed it down, and took it in a cart to the pier, some twelve miles distant, where the steamer by which he was going to send them called. A gentleman he met there told him that unless he wished the cubs to die of suffocation he had better take the top of the box off and bore breathing-holes in it; and while doing so one of them made its escape. It was dark at the time; and after a short pursuit he had to give it up as hopeless, and returned home next morning after sending off the remaining two. To his astonishment he found the missing cub comfortably ensconced in its accustomed corner, and was told by his wife that at eleven the previous evening, just three hours after the little animal had made its escape, she had heard something scratching at the door, and on opening it found the cub, much travel-stained and wet, and evidently very tired, but delighted at reaching home again. How it managed to find its way on a dark wet night over a road it had never seen, and had only once traversed shut up in a box at the bottom of a cart, is one of the mysteries of instinct; a faculty which ought rather to be ranked with reason.

On entering the glen Ian commenced to cast his hounds, which had hitherto kept to heel, from side to side; and we had hardly gone a hundred yards before they began to get busy, and in a few minutes it was evident they had got on the line of a fox. Knowing the ground well, we watched them without moving for a little while, until indeed we felt no doubt as to the particular cairn their quarry had been making for, and then, as his line had by no means been a direct one, we had ample time to get above the hounds and, while making our own way as direct as possible, watch them as they followed him along the mountain-side. It was pleasant to see them all working together, making a cast here or a turn there, as they puzzled out the cold scent, their rich full note every now and again reaching us as one or other of them was able to 'speak' to it. Winding in and out among the small corries, but ever rising higher and higher, the tiny pack at last headed direct for the cairn, close to which we had arrived several minutes before; and whether the scent was fresher, or they were encouraged by again seeing us, every hound joined in the musical chorus.

We were standing on a small eminence close by, and as the rich bell-like notes sounded through the clear air of the mountain-tops, an old dog-fox with a white-tipped brush stole out, and before Ian could get his gun up, was well under weigh. I am glad to say that shooting straight did not form one of the old man's accomplishments, and I saw his slugs flatten themselves into great white blotches on the face of a big black rock a couple of yards behind the tod. At the same instant, with a yell which brought the hounds to my heels, I rushed after it, and only waiting long enough to see them racing away in full view, I made for the top of the hill, now not many yards distant. Ian, notwithstanding old age and white hairs, was already before me, and I had to run hard before I could get on level terms with him. The chase was for the time out of sight though not out of hearing; but after a smart run of half an hour's duration we came to a jutting perpendicular precipice, forming the angle where a smaller glen joined the main one, and far below us we could see the hounds racing without a check, while a careful search of the probable line of the tod revealed him making the best of his way to a very strong cairn on the hill exactly opposite to us. Feeling pretty certain that as he had got his mark in that direction, he would make it his point, we sat down on the brink of the precipice and watched both pursuers and pursued. The latter was evidently gaining ground, and seemed to be aware of the fact, as he was certainly not distressing himself; but the hounds were running so that literally a sheet would have covered them, and were hunting his line without even a momentary divergence; so that, however well this strong hill-fox might have proved, he would have found it no easy matter to run them out of scent. Five minutes across the glen, and another five up the opposite hill, sufficed, however, to bring him close to his stronghold; and secure in the prospect of immediate safety, he had the coolness to turn round and watch his pursuers as they toiled up behind him; disappearing from our view the moment after behind the great rock and boulders which everywhere lay scattered around.

As soon as he did so, we got up and made the best of our way across, finding the hounds mounting guard on the rock under which he had disappeared. The cairn he had taken refuge in was the strongest and largest on the property. A chaotic mass of loose boulders were strewed one above another among enormous masses of rock over an extent of some four acres; and so rough was the walking that it was exceedingly difficult if not absolutely dangerous to attempt to cross it. Rabbits inhabited it by the thousand, and the whole mass was connected more or less by passages beneath the surface. Indeed there was nothing to prevent a fox from taking the ground on one side and bolting perhaps two hundred yards off on the other; and Ian's first care on arriving was to take his hounds round outside, to make sure that it had not done so. Satisfied on this point, he chose a position on one of the biggest rocks, and after putting his terrier in he retired there, in readiness to fire if the fox bolted. I remained down below, to follow as far as practicable the progress of the terrier. The little animal well knew its work, and plunged in under the rock with the utmost keenness. A second after, a yelp or two told that it could feel the hot scent, if it had not reached the fox; but the yelps grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away. I kept moving about among the boulders, listening at the rabbit-burrows and crevices of the rocks, and at last I distinguished the snarl of the terrier, followed at intervals by distant sounds of tearing and scratching. The combat, however, if combat it was, was taking place very deep down, and it was impossible to distinguish what was going on. By degrees also, even these sounds ceased; and as, after waiting for more than half an hour, they were not renewed, Ian joined me, and ineffectually called and whistled for his dog.

After persevering in trying to make out its position for some time, we at length desisted; and as it was necessary for one of us to go for assistance in the shape of other terriers and more men, I volunteered to undertake the task, leaving Ian to guard the cairn during my absence. A sharp run of an hour took me to the farmhouse, where the news of our having got a fox in the Gray Rock Cairn soon spread; and by the time I had bolted a few mouthfuls of breakfast, and got some grub put up for Ian, I found half-a-dozen men and three times that number of terriers and collies in readiness to accompany me back. A little over two hours saw us at the scene of action; and we heard that nothing had occurred during my absence, except that Ian felt pretty confident that he had once distinguished the sound of his terrier scraping. We had brought four others of his up with us, and these he at once turned in; while every one who owned a dog of the breed put it into some part of the cairn, and then awaited the result; the collies meanwhile contemplating the proceedings, sitting on their haunches with their ears half cocked and their heads a little on one side; pictures of canine wisdom. The terriers had not been in many minutes before a regular chorus of yelping commenced, followed by the appearance of one or two of the less courageous with their tails well tucked in between their legs, only to receive execrations in guttural Gaelic from their owners. We now set to work to move some of the smaller boulders; and at the end of about an hour's hard work, we reached the scene of the conflict, and found the fox which we had marked to ground, and another, quite dead.

Great were the rejoicings over the death of these two of the shepherds' enemies, and loud the praises each man bestowed on his own terrier, if he was fortunate enough to possess one. In real truth, however, it was those belonging to Ian which had done the work, as they were put in first, and not more than three could have reached the fox at one time.

On several other occasions I was out on such-like expeditions from dawn to an hour or two after dark, during which time we killed six foxes, one falling a victim to Ian's gun, and the rest meeting their death in fair fight with one or two terriers; as except on the occasion I have just related, I do not remember more than the latter number being turned in at once. We also had some capital runs with the hounds; and whatever may be the opinion of the legitimate fox-hunter, I can assure him he may have worse sport than a day on foot among our Highland hills.

W. H. D.

SMUGGLING IN ITS DROLL ASPECTS.

The Custom-house, London, although it figures in almanacs in the list of 'places of public amusement,' is by no means a cheerful building. Situated in the extremely busy and dirty thoroughfare called Lower Thames Street, next door to Billingsgate Market, far-famed for good fish and choice language, it has few attractions for those who are not compelled by business needs to enter its portal. Here is nothing but noisy activity. Merchants' clerks, porters, car-men, and the numberless beings who form the rank and file of a vast commercial centre, elbow each other as they push through the ever swinging doors in their anxiety to get their business transacted.

Occasionally a knot of country people may be met with in the 'Long-room' staring about them in the fruitless search after anything in the shape of entertainment; but with these exceptions the place is given up to business. If these visitors were able to find their way to the Museum, they would there see much to both interest and astonish them; but this part of the building is perhaps necessarily withheld from the general public, for there seems in the busy hive so much for everybody to do, that drones in the shape of sight-seers would hardly be welcome.

Yet, the Custom-house contains a museum of real curiosities--memorials of attempts at smuggling. Various causes have contributed to the decline of contrabandism as a means of livelihood, chief among which are the necessary reductions and alterations in the Customs tariff since the adoption in this country of free-trade principles. When such valuable and portable articles as watches and lace were heavily taxed, the temptation to secrete them was naturally very common. At the same period too the duty on spirits was about five times as much as its intrinsic worth, and therefore this class of goods afforded a rich harvest to the successful smuggler. Things are changed now, for lace and watches are duty free, and the tax upon spirits has been reduced considerably more than one half. Tobacco and spirits, owing perhaps to the universal demand for them, have always, above other things, met with the smuggler's particular regard; and such cases as now come before our police magistrates are generally confined to these two articles. A matter-of-fact heavy fine and confiscation of the surreptitious goods, is the usual result of conviction; and the smuggler--which our childhood's fancy painted as a brave hero fighting the myrmidons of an oppressive government in some wild cave on the sea-shore--is quietly walked off to prison until he can pay the forfeit. 'The Smuggler's Cave' still remains; for with that clinging fondness for the traditions of past times, it is the fashion to dignify any natural crevice in our cliffs with that title; but now the modern policeman steps upon the scene, and poetical ideas vanish with the sound of his creaking contract boots.

The chief evidence of smuggling as it has existed within the present century is furnished by certain articles which have been seized from time to time, and which are now lodged in the Custom-house Museum. It is to this Museum that we now intend to direct our readers' attention, and more especially to a certain large cabinet in the corner of the room, the contents of which supply a title to this paper. The first thing which is pointed out to us is a ship's 'fender,' which we may remind our readers is a block of wood with a rope attached slung over the bows to prevent the abrasion which might be caused by contact with another vessel. This particular fender was found to be hollow, and to contain several pounds of compressed tobacco. The officer who thought of looking for the soothing weed in such a receptacle must have been an extremely 'cute individual. But here is a still more extraordinary hiding-place, and one which must have involved a journey aloft for its detection--a ship's block, the sheave or wheel of which is actually made of solid tobacco. Here is an ornamental pedestal which once adorned the corner of a captain's cabin, and would perhaps adorn it still, had it not been found gorged with contraband cigars. Another commander appears to have been a more moderate smoker, for he was content with only two pounds of cheroots, which were found inside a sham loaf on his breakfast table. Here we have a number of cigars knotted singly on a string, like the tail of a kite; these were dropped between the inner and outer timbers of a ship's side; whilst holes drilled in the ends of an egg-box furnish lodging for several more.

A broomstick does not seem at first sight to offer much room for concealment, but here is one which, accidentally broken, revealed a core of that rope-like commodity known to those who chew the weed, as 'pigtail.' Cakes of tobacco formed to fit into the sole of a boot shew another ingenious mode of disposal. But the prize for inventive talent must certainly be awarded to the clever rascal who compressed snuff into slabs, and stamped them to exactly imitate the oil-cakes on which cattle are fattened. Whether the discovery of the deception was owing to moral objections on the part of some experienced cow to chew anything stronger than cud does not transpire; but the real nature of the food was somehow ascertained, and what might have proved the staple of a lucrative trade, was transformed into the original dust from which it sprung.

The stewardess of a Jersey steamer is the next delinquent who comes before our notice. On various occasions the petticoat has been found to be a useful auxiliary to the smuggler, and the one which was taken from this lady sufficiently proves the truth of our remark, for twenty-seven pounds of tobacco were hidden in its folds. Two more garments of the same nature contained respectively eighteen and twenty pounds of cigars; whilst another, with the help of a number of fish-bladders hanging from the waistband, was charged with several gallons of brandy. Bladders of cognac have also been found attached to a ship's keel several feet under water. It is to be presumed that the discovery of these last was not made in the Thames, the water of that river not being celebrated for its transparency. Artificial lobster-pots thrown overboard with corks attached, also afford favourite receptacles for various articles. Another stewardess, in this case belonging to a Rotterdam boat, did a little ostensible trading in pigeons. Here is the box in which they were caged, constructed with a false bottom, below which were hidden a few pounds of Cavendish. It is a question whether birds ever before so well deserved to be called _carrier_ pigeons. The journey to Rotterdam is but a short one, so that although this lady did not indulge in such wholesale doings as her sister of Jersey, she worked on the principle that 'many a little makes a mickle.' Here is an apparently well-bound volume which a studious individual carried under his arm during the transaction of his daily business at one of the docks. It was found to be made of glass, moulded into the form of a book, and covered with leather. That it was a work of much spirit was proved from the fact that it was full of _eau de vie_. Another book is exhibited, the leaves of which are punched through with round holes from cover to cover, for the reception of watches.

We are told that the detection of most of these contrivances for concealing goods about the person has been due to the nervous trepidation of the delinquents themselves; an apt illustration of Hamlet's words: 'Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.' It would seem an almost impossible task to secrete one hundred and forty-seven watches in a single garment, but nevertheless one individual succeeded in doing so. Unfortunately he found a difficulty in sitting down, and the continued fatigue of keeping his feet during a long voyage so told upon his nerves, that fancying he was detected and watched, he gave himself up to justice, literally clothed in his own confusion. Here we have four tin boxes about an inch in depth and about two feet square, having a capacity of four and a half gallons, which, filled with spirit, were found hidden below the clothing in a passenger's boxes. But the latest contribution to the Museum is a small quantity of treacle-like fluid labelled 'Nicotine Poison.' This is a sample of a consignment lately received from Hamburg, and politely returned to the port of shipment, by order of the Customs Board. It is imagined that some enterprising genius had it in his mind to convert by its aid the refuse leaves of the British cabbage into Havana cigars. We have already had experience of Hamburg sherry and Hamburg butter, and doubtless the Customs Commissioners had these commodities in view when they rejected the persuasive overtures of the narcotic in question.

Besides the things which we have enumerated, there are various articles of interest in this Museum. Several curious old prints, shewing what the Custom-house was like in the days when the London suburbs were little villages, separated from the city by some miles of meadow-land. It was then the practice of the Commissioners to ride or drive to their duties, and stable accommodation was therefore a necessary adjunct of the premises. Here too are shewn the dies used when each outport had its own particular seal--this was years ago, before the telegraphs and railways had so effectually lessened their distance from London. 'Leverpoole' was then a creek attached to the port of Chester; on the other hand, many towns which have now sunk into comparative insignificance, were then flourishing sea-ports of great commercial activity. Some curious records relative to the payment of officers are also well worth attention. Here we learn, by marginal notes, that certain unfortunate beings are to be deprived of their salaries, 'they being Papists;' whilst one is mulcted of his due because 'his wife is now or was lately a Papist.' These notes were written in the year previous to that which saw the landing of the Prince of Orange, and they form a singularly terse comment upon the state of public feeling which led to that event. The world is now nearly two hundred years older, and has grown more tolerant. We cannot say that it has become honest; but for the reasons already given, it is not likely that many additions will be made to the curiosities of Smuggling.

THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

The Royal Agricultural Society's _Journal_, No. 25, recently published, abounds with information likely to interest other persons as well as farmers. There is a good account of the implements exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Show, in which many clever contrivances are described, among them not a few shewing that Canada is by no means deficient in inventive ingenuity. Dr Voelcker in his experiments on roots explains that swedes when allowed to sprout a second time transfer two-thirds of their solid substance to their tops or leaves; and he calls attention to a series of experiments carried on in France which lead to the conclusion that 'roots mature more readily when planted closer, and often yield a heavier crop per acre, than when they are planted too widely apart.' In his chemical report the doctor exposes the trickery used in the manufacture of oil-cake, and says that he has 'considered it his duty to refer to these matters because he knows that mal-practices of cake crushers and dealers are again gradually extending all over England.' Then comes an article on the use and value of straw as food, which will surprise most readers; and next we find a Report on analysis of butter drawn up for the Board of Inland Revenue, in which the reporters state that the more butter is washed and kneaded to expel the curd the better will it be; and that 'while some of the finest and best prepared butters undergo little or no change, there is in others a gradual disappearance of the characteristic principles of butter, and a consequent assimilation to the constitution of an ordinary animal fat. This change, which appears to be due to an incipient fermentation, and is generally accompanied by the development of fungi, is probably caused either by the use of sour cream or by insufficient care in making the butter.' We only add the remark that the souring of butter is more frequently caused by negligence in washing out the milk properly than anything else.

This seems the place to mention that a reward of three hundred marks has been offered by the Pharmaceutical Union of Leipzig for the discovery of a sure and practical method for the detection of the adulteration of butter by other fatty substances. The competing descriptions are to be sent in before September 30 of the present year.

Another article in the _Journal_, by the Rev. Canon Brereton, sets forth the advantages offered by Cavendish College, Cambridge, as bearing on the education of agriculturists. 'The time and the cost,' he says, 'of a three years' residence in College, after the school course is finished, have been considered incompatible with the obligations both of learning and earning, in the business of a farm.' But the reform of schools and the establishment of local examinations have 'not only made the general school preparation itself much more effective for after-life, but have admitted the possibility of adding to the school the further advantage of a college course, and this within the university, and in permanent connection, therefore, with the highest education of the country. In short, many a lad of fifteen or sixteen who has been taught in a good school has it quite in his reach to take a university degree at eighteen or nineteen, and then enter on his professional studies and duties with all the advantages of a completed education. To secure practically this important result, and to offer to such lads the best university instruction, with suitable protection and associates, and at a very moderate cost, the new Cavendish College is now being founded in Cambridge.'

In a recent _Month_ (_ante_ 270) we mentioned an exhaust nozzle for quieting the noise of safety-valves and escape-pipes. This nozzle has since been described in the _Journal of the Franklin Institute_ (Philadelphia). It consists of a spiral coil of wire so compressed as to leave a slight space between the individual turns of the coil. This when properly adjusted is fitted into the end of the escape-pipe: the steam rushes out; but instead of communicating its vibrations to the air, communicates them to the coil. 'As, however, the individual turns of the coil cannot vibrate to any considerable extent without coming in contact with the adjacent ones, interference occurs to such an extent that the vibrations are _not_ transmitted to the air.'

This useful invention (Shaw's Spiral Exhaust Nozzle) has been reported on by a Committee of the Institute, who in concluding their very favourable Report, recommend the grant of a premium and a medal to the inventor, and remark: 'In view of the annoyance, fright, and danger arising from the roar of escaping steam, and of the completeness with which the nozzle destroys this roar, we are of the opinion that Mr Shaw has done a great service to the community, and particularly to the transportation interests, in overcoming an obnoxious and dangerous feature in the use of steam.' The nozzle, we are informed, has already been largely adopted in America. Shall we have long to wait for its introduction here? People who dwell in the neighbourhood of factories and thousands of travellers, are ready to give it a welcome.

Steam-power for tramways instead of horse-power continues to be a subject of experiment, with a view to prevent noise and escape of steam, so that passengers may not be deafened nor horses frightened. It was stated at a meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, that the best form of tramway is that which has the rails laid on continuous wooden sleepers, and that there will not be so great a saving as is commonly supposed by using steam instead of horses, for the repairs of the engines will be a heavy item of expense, and the engine-fitters and drivers will require high wages. Some inventors dispense with steam and make use of compressed air; and mention was made of 'a pneumatic car designed by Mr Scott Moncrieff which had been at work on the Yale of Clyde tramways. It carries one hundred cubic feet of air at a pressure of three hundred and fifty pounds on the square inch; and considering that everything about it was of a rough and temporary character, the success obtained was encouraging.' As regards capability, we are told that 'on the level, and on gradients up to one in thirty, engines can do all that is necessary. But the engine has yet to be designed which will stop and start again, with a heavy car behind it, on any steeper inclination without trouble and delay.'

On the other side of the Atlantic, a different conclusion has been arrived at, for, as stated in the _Journal of the Franklin Institute_, a steam tramway engine has been tried in Baltimore which, with a load of a hundred passengers, can be easily stopped and started on a gradient of seven feet in the hundred, or nearly three hundred and seventy feet per mile. It drew the same load through snow and slush ten inches deep, when four horses were required to draw an ordinary car. This engine weighs sixteen thousand pounds. On suburban roads it travels at from twelve to eighteen miles an hour. Compared with a two-horse car, it shews, in its working expenses, a saving of five hundred and fifty-eight dollars in a year. The power of traction is, however, of less importance than the absence of smoke and of noise from the steam that is employed. Several good specimens of smokeless and noiseless tramway engines have been shewn in this country.

A horseshoe which is described as 'partaking of the moccasin and also of the sandal' has been brought into use at Philadelphia for street traffic, with, as is said, satisfactory results. It is hollow on the under side, and the hollow is filled by a piece of tarred rope, which by deadening concussion, lessens the severity of the horse's labour and the wear of the paving-stones. This shoe is put on cold, and requires not more than six nails to hold it in place. Something has been heard too of a shoe made of compressed sole leather chemically treated, which is lighter and more lasting than iron shoes; but of this we have as yet no particulars. Lightness should be a recommendation; for if a set of shoes weigh two pounds and a horse trots one step every second, he will lift one hundred and twenty pounds in a minute; from which the sum-total of weight lifted in a day's work may be calculated. When farriers and all people who keep horses shall have some real knowledge of a horse's foot, then proper horseshoes may be expected to come into general use.

Mr Outerbridge of Philadelphia has succeeded in producing by precipitation gold-leaf so thin that with a single grain he can cover nearly four feet of surface. Nearly three million of such films would be required to make an inch in thickness. The films are not, as might be supposed, patchy, but are perfectly whole and continuous: they are also transparent, and serve to illustrate the green appearance of gold under transmitted light.

A good example of the economy of fuel effected by the use of compound cylinders is to be seen in Cherry's Compound Steam-pumping Engine, which has been recently exhibited at Birmingham and at Falmouth. With four pounds of coal hourly for each horse-power, this engine, when fixed in a mine, will force water from a depth of more than a thousand feet; and it is of course applicable to overground work as well as underground work. The characteristics, as described in the Report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, are 'extreme simplicity, the reduction of friction to a minimum, thorough efficiency of expansion;' and the entire cost of the engine will be less than the cost of the foundations for an ordinary pumping-engine.--With this may be noticed Stevens' patent underground Hauling Engine, which is so compact that it may be placed almost anywhere in a mine, requires no foundation, may be spiked to a piece of timber or wedged to the roof, and is not affected by the moving of the floor, which is not unfrequent in mines. Another advantage is, that it requires but a few hours to get it into working order, and may be driven by steam or compressed air at pleasure.

A common objection to ordinary fireplaces is too much of the heat wasted up the chimney, and various contrivances have been tried to prevent this waste, one of which was an iron plate instead of bars for the bottom of the grate. An improvement on this is Wavish's patent Coal Economiser, which has a hollow-pierced cylinder rising from the middle of the plate. The air entering the cylinder from below the grate is thus conveyed at once into the centre of the fire, and the heat, instead of rushing up the chimney in undue quantity, is diffused into the room, and coal is economised. The perfection of combustion is achieved when, instead of feeding the cylinder with the vitiated air of the room, it is fed by a pipe communicating with the external air. And further, we are informed that 'if a bag of camphor or other disinfectant is hung on the cylinder, the scent is driven into the apartment;' and thus any room in a house may be perfumed, disinfected, or ventilated by this contrivance, when properly fitted.

Among recent patents is one granted to Professor Sir William Thomson for 'improvements in navigational deep-sea soundings.' With this apparatus a sounding can be taken without stopping the progress of the vessel, which is in itself an important advantage. The depth is indicated by appearances in a glass tube, which shew what portion has been occupied by air while under pressure beneath the water. A Frenchman has invented a sounding apparatus which consists of an india-rubber bag filled with mercury communicating with a valved metallic chamber. The pressure of the water forces the mercury into the chamber, and the quantity therein denotes the depth.

Hitherto the electric light, though a brilliant and powerful substitute for sunshine, has resisted the attempts made to bring it into general use. Clockwork has been required to keep the carbon points always the same distance apart, and as carbon wastes by burning, there was too often failure on the part of the wheels. But now Mr Jablochkoff, a Russian military officer, has discovered a way of overcoming the difficulty. His source of light being a magneto-electric machine, strong enough to produce, say, twenty minor lights, he connects the points where these are to be placed with the principal machine by means of wires. At each of those points he fixes an 'electric candle,' composed of two strips of carbon, and a central strip of a fusible and insulating substance described as kaolin. The current flowing from the machine passes up one of the carbon strips of the first candle, appears as a steady light at top, passes down the other strip, and so on to each candle in succession, and returns to the machine from the last of the series. The candles burn about an hour; but as four are fitted to each lamp, and take light one after the other, an uninterrupted illumination of four hours is thus provided for.

This method has been tried with approbation in Paris, and in London at the West India Docks. Gas appeared dull and feeble by contrast, and the onlookers came to the conclusion that by aid of the electric light the loading or unloading of ships could be readily carried on at night. A further advantage is, that the light is portable, and can be taken without danger into the hold of a vessel. Thus by subdividing a single current and leading each division to a 'candle,' it seems that the question of utilising the electric light is likely to be solved.

Mr C. Meldrum, F.R.S., Director of the Observatory at Mauritius, devotes much time to observation and discussion of sun-spots, rainfall, and cyclones. After carefully considering and comparing observations made in all parts of the world, he finds them corroborated by those of his own locality, and that there is a decided and apparently persistent difference between the rainfall of the period of most sun-spots and of fewest sun-spots: the law being, the more spots the more rain. He finds further, that the increase and decrease have recurrent periods, that there are cycles of rainfall, of sun-spots, and of cyclones; and he remarks: 'Although the question has been brought forward simply by way of hypothesis, yet it appears to me that, on the whole, the evidence in favour of a connection between sun-spots, cyclones, and rainfall, is so strong that any doubts or uncertainty that may now exist will soon be dispelled.... The hypothesis does not require that the years of fewest spots must necessarily be years of drought, and those of most spots necessarily years of torrential rains over the whole earth. It merely requires that the rainfall of the globe should be subject to a variation having a period of the same length as the sun-spot period. Observation shews, however, that the years of fewest sun-spots are those in which severe droughts are most to be feared.'

'It would be a hopeless task,' continues Mr Meldrum, 'to try to convince those who judge of the matter only by their sensations, that less rain falls over the globe in some years than in others. Great floods and great droughts, especially floods, make deep impressions on the mind, particularly on the minds of those who may have suffered from them. If in a certain year a man was ruined by a succession of floods, and in another by a succession of droughts, it might be hard to persuade him that, generally, the former was a remarkably dry year, and the latter a remarkably wet one. The opinions of people who trust to their sensations in a question of this kind, are swayed from side to side by every change of weather. It is only by taking annual averages for many places and many years that the truth comes out.'

Papers bearing on this question were read during the past session at the Royal Society, shewing that by careful observation of the periodical phenomena above mentioned, it would be possible to foretell and provide against the calamitous seasons of famine which occur in India. This would indeed be a beneficent application of physical science; but the results of observation are not yet sufficiently definite. General Strachey, F.R.S., read a paper to prove, by a negative process, that 'there has been no sufficient evidence adduced of any periodicity at all.' Thus the question remains open to further observation and argument, of which there will be no lack; but we may anticipate that a profitable direction will be given to both by the new Council appointed by the Treasury to govern the Meteorological Office. This Council comprises the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, and five Fellows of the Royal Society eminently qualified to deal with scientific questions and direct the work of the Office.

A FIJIAN TRAGEDY.

The following sad story is correct in its details; it occurred within the writer's ken, and may serve to illustrate how English civilisation and laws affect the Fijian mind and mode of thought. About four years ago Ravuso Ioni was the principal chief of Waia, one of a group of islands the most westerly in Fiji, called the Yasawas. About that time the parvenu Fijian government had just been formed; and we planters and natives were blessed with a travesty of English laws and institutions down in the Yasawas: one of our planters was made a warden, a court-house was established, and a posse of native police sent down. It need hardly be said that these proceedings were a mystery to the natives; and even close to Levuka, the more enlightened of them could at first hardly be brought to understand the idea of any government. At all events, Ravuso troubled himself very little about the new _nata-ni-tu_, as the government was called by the natives, but carried on in the old Fijian style of his fathers. Now there was a young man in Waia who made love to all the young girls; and not content with that, he also paid his attentions to the married women. The Fijians are a jealous lot; and by-and-by a mob of angry husbands complained of this young fellow to their chief Ravuso, who, with the advice of the old men in full council, decided that this gay lover was to be buturaka-ed, or turkey tramped as we whites call it. This buturaka-ing is an institution peculiar to Fiji. The unfortunate is knocked down; and the natives dance and jump on him until he is insensible and nearly dead. A man seldom recovers thoroughly from a good, or rather a bad, buturaka-ing.

Some, doubtless, of the jealous husbands or their friends were among the party that buturaka-ed the gay deceiver, because they carried out their orders so well that in three weeks after the young fellow died from the effects.