Chapter II: Part 2

Ladies have a great field for the display of eccentricity, in their mode of costume. We know of one lady who has never altered her style of dress since she was eighteen. The consequence is that every ten years or so the fashions come round to her, and for a brief period she is _à la mode_. Never having made any concessions to the abominations of crinoline or false hair, she is at the present time more orthodox than she appeared five years ago. Every time has had its eccentricities in this respect, and Mr Timbs shews us a certain Miss Banks, who died in 1818, and in plain terms looked a 'regular guy.' She was a lady of good position, being the sister of Sir Joseph Banks. Her costume consisted of a Barcelona quilted petticoat, which had a hole on each side, for the convenience of rummaging two immense pockets stuffed with books of all sizes, which did not add to the symmetry of her already large proportions. In this guise she went about, followed by a footman carrying a cane, as tall as his mistress, or her luggage when accompanying her on a journey. She was the originator of the words _Hightum_, _Tightum_, and _Scrub_, which so many ladies are fond of applying in the order of precedence to their wearing apparel. These words Miss Banks invented to distinguish three dresses she had made for herself at the same time, and all alike; the first for best, the second for occasional, and the third for daily wear.

While on feminine eccentricities we must record some that we have met with in our own day. So convinced is one elderly married lady of the peculating propensities of all lodging-house menials, that after each meal a curious scene takes place in her room. Every article, such as her tea-caddy, sugar-basin, jam-pot, &c., which she has had occasion to use during the meal, is placed on the table, on which stand a gum-bottle, a brush, and several long strips of paper. She then proceeds to gum up her property. A strip of paper is gummed round the opening to the tea-caddy; the pot of preserve is similarly secured, together with all else that is likely to attract that lawless fly the lodging-house servant! We know of another lady who for years has lived with only the light of gas or candle in her rooms. She imagines that air and daylight are injurious to her sight, and her rooms are little better than well-furnished tombs, into which no chink of light or breath of heaven is suffered to intrude.

Mr Timbs introduces us to a lady equally eccentric in her ideas about water. Lady Lewson of Clerkenwell objected totally to washing either her house or her person. She considered water to be the root of all malady, in the unnecessary way people expose themselves to the chills caught by frequent ablution! And as for health--was she not a living instance that a morning tub is all nonsense, for she was one hundred and sixteen years old when she died! For the greater part of her life she never dipped her face into water, using hog's-lard instead, to soften her skin. Although large and well furnished, her house, like her person, was never washed and but rarely swept.

We remember an amusing instance of French respect for cold water, in the speech of a French gentleman, married to an English lady of our acquaintance who used to indulge in a bath morning and evening; a custom so astounding to her husband that he exclaimed in our hearing: 'She does not use water--she _ab_uses it.'

Eccentricity often displays itself in an inordinate affection for animals and a singular manner of treating them. An instance of this was the late Earl of Bridgewater, who now comes before us with his family of performing dogs. He lived in Paris during the last century, where the circumstances we narrate took place. He was a miserable-looking little man, unable to walk without the support of two lackeys. He had an immense fortune, which he spent in gratifying every caprice. Was a book lent him? It was regarded as the representative of its owner, and returned in the earl's landau, occupying the place of honour and attended by four footmen in costly livery, who handed it to the astonished owner. His carriage was frequently to be seen filled with dogs, his special pets. On the feet of these dogs he bestowed as much attention as though they were unfortunate human beings; he ordered them boots, for which he paid as dearly as for his own. Not caring to entertain his own kind at his table, few people dined with him. Still, covers were daily laid for a dozen, served by suitable attendants. At this table he received, and dined with no less than twelve favourite dogs, who seemed to comprehend the compliment paid them, as they occupied their chairs with decorum, each with its white napkin tied round its neck. They were so trained, that should any, by an instinct of appetite, transgress any rule of good-manners, he was banished from the table, and degraded to an antechamber, where he picked his bone in mortification; his place remaining empty until he had earned his master's pardon.

There are some whose eccentricity takes the form of hatred of society. Of this number was the Honourable Henry Cavendish, a man of great learning and enormous fortune, who earned the title of 'Woman-hating Cavendish,' as he would never see a woman if he could avoid it. If a female servant was unlucky enough to shew herself, she was instantly dismissed. He was compelled to employ a housekeeper, but all their communications were carried on by correspondence. His ideas of dining were restricted to legs of mutton only. On one occasion when his housekeeper suggested that one leg of mutton would not be sufficient for a party invited, he met the difficulty by ordering _two_!

A number of eccentricities are displayed by people in their burial bequests. A certain Dr Fidge, a physician of the old school, converted a favourite boat into a coffin, which he kept under his bed for many years in readiness. When death drew near, he begged his nurse to pull his legs straight and place him as a dead man, as it would _save her trouble afterwards_, saying which he comfortably departed. Job Orton, a publican of the Bell Inn, Kidderminster, had his tombstone with epitaph erected in the parish church. His coffin was also built and ready for him; but until he was ready for it he used it as a wine-bin. Major Peter Laballiere of Box Hill, Dorking, selected a spot for his burial, which he directed should be without church rites, and _head downwards_; in order that, 'as the world was in his opinion topsy-turvy, he might come right end up at last!' But a certain Jack Fuller caps even the major, for he left directions that he was to be buried in a _pyramidal_ mausoleum in Brightling churchyard, Sussex; giving as his reason for selecting to be embalmed in stone _above_ ground, his unwillingness to be eaten by his relatives--a process he considered inevitable if buried in the ordinary manner, for 'The worms,' he declares, 'would eat me; the ducks would eat the worms; and my relations would eat the ducks.'

Of all eccentricities, those displayed by misers are the most notable and repulsive. To dwell upon them at any length is neither pleasant nor interesting; it is only where parsimony and genius are allied that one pauses to examine the specimen. Let us now take a brief survey of Nollekens the sculptor, in whom these opposites were met. Descended from a miserly stock, he did not fall short of his ancestry in his love of money, and it first became apparent in a filthy mode of living while a student at Rome. He married a woman even more parsimonious than himself, and their housekeeping was pitiful. Hatred of light is an observable trait with most misers; and over their coals and candles the Nollekens were scrupulously economical; the former, Nollekens counted with his own hands. The candles were never lighted at the commencement of the evening; and if a knock were heard at the door, it was not answered until repeated, in case the first should prove a runaway, and the candle be wasted! A flat candlestick served them for ordinary purposes, and by carefully extinguishing them when company went, they made a pair of moulds last a whole year!

Before his marriage, Nollekens had an unfortunate little servant called Bronze, whose appetite he so feared that he placed her on board-wages, and gave her only just enough money to furnish him with food each day, which he took care to consume. Bronze with rare patience, for which we cannot account, continued to serve after her master was married, and declared that never had she seen a jack-towel in their house and never had she washed with soap! Mrs Nollekens never went to any but a second-hand shop for their wearing apparel and shoes, and their charity was of the same second-hand nature, as when Mrs Nollekens directed the maid to give the 'bone with little or no meat on it' to two starving men who applied for relief. If a present of a leveret was sent them, they made it serve two dinners for four people. The sculptor grew more generous before death, his parsimonious partner having gone first, as though he strove by sundry spasmodic gifts to atone for the avarice of a life. If these details are as unsavoury to some as to ourselves, we only justify their narration on the ground stated, that the qualities they set forth were found existing in a genius.

Did time permit we should like to linger over those notable eccentrics, Porson, Horne Tooke, Peter Pindar (Dr Wolcot), and others; but we can only give a characteristic anecdote or two. Porson, the cleverest and most erratic of creatures, was the victim of abstraction to an extent that rendered him forgetful at times to eat. 'Will you not stay and dine,' asked Rogers the poet. 'Thank you; no; I dined _yesterday_!' he replied. Dr Parr asked him before a large assembly what he thought about the introduction of moral and physical evil into the world. 'Why, doctor,' said Porson, 'I think we should have done very well without them.' And it makes us laugh to hear an ignorant person, who was anxious to get into conversation with him, ask, if Captain Cook was killed in his _first_ voyage. 'I believe he was,' answers Porson; 'though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered on a second!'

Tooke began life with a joke, telling every one that he was the son of a Turkey merchant; by which name he defined his father's trade of poulterer. His ready wit was never at a loss; and it is to him we are indebted for the following well-known joke. 'Now, young man,' said an uncle to him one day, giving him good advice, 'as you are settled in town I would advise you to take a wife.' 'With all my heart, sir,' replied Tooke; 'whose wife shall I take?'

Peter Pindar boasted that he was the only man that ever outwitted a publisher. Being a popular writer, his works brought him a good income. His publisher wishing to purchase the copyright and print a collected edition, made him an offer in cash. In order, however, to drive a good bargain, Pindar feigned to be in very bad health, declaring he could not live long; and every time the publisher came to see him he acted the invalid to such perfection that he got a handsome _annuity_, which, to the disgust of the publisher, he lived to enjoy until the unconscionable age of eighty-one.

We leave a number of our eccentric friends with regret. There was Curtis, whom we do not care to accompany in his search after the horrible and his passion for convicts and executions. There was Dr Fordyce, whose eccentricity in the matter of food is a study; he lived for years on one meal a day only, but a meal so enormous that we wonder, as we read the quantities, how he ever lived to repeat it daily for twenty years. We can only now recommend those who have been interested so far, to supply our deficiencies by going to the source from whence we have gathered the matter for this brief notice.

SNAKE-INCUBATION.

The Zoological Gardens of London, always attractive, now and then acquire even additional interest by the arrival of some new inmate, or the occurrence of some rare event among those already established there. Last year the Prince of Wales's Indian collection of animals, the year before the snake-eating snake, drew extra crowds; and of late the anaconda from Brazil has rendered herself popular by bringing forth a family of snakelings; though, owing to the effects of her long journey and close imprisonment, her young ones were dead. A few years ago the largest snake in the Gardens was an African python, that deposited above one hundred eggs in a nest of moss which had been supplied to her; and as some writers about snakes had told us that the python incubates her eggs, and that only this kind exhibits any such maternal instinct, she also drew crowds of the curious.

The pythoness whose proceedings we are about to relate, having deposited her eggs, arranged them in a level mass and then coiled herself around and over them; sometimes they could be just discovered between her coils, and sometimes she covered them entirely. Heat combined with moisture are essential to the development of snakes' eggs; and in the choice of a spot in which to deposit them, the maternal instinct of the animal in a state of freedom is evident. It is generally among decaying vegetation where heat is generated, or in some moist soft herbage where the sun's rays can penetrate. To regulate the temperature in a close cage and keep the moss precisely in a condition to suit snake requirements, was by no means easy, and our pythoness seemed far from satisfied. The fact, however, was established beyond doubt, that she was hatching her eggs by the warmth of her own body.

But a most untoward disaster happened one night in the overflowing of the tank among her eggs, completely saturating them; and it was not surprising therefore, that no young pythons appeared. The enormous reptile remained coiled around and over her addled eggs for above seven weeks, after which they were taken from her. She had, and with good reason, been exceedingly irritable and even savage during this time of trial, as it was mid-winter, the season when under other circumstances she, like her companions, would have been half torpid. But her maternal affection was undeniable, and this alone was worth witnessing; since some authors would have had us believe that snakes (and particularly non-venomous ones) manifest entire indifference regarding their eggs and young. The python's eggs being, as usual, in one long string, the keeper had no little trouble in getting them from under her.

Being aquatic in their habits, and on that account requiring much water, anacondas are difficult to keep in captivity. The one lately arrived among us was no sooner released from its travelling box than it took to the tank with which its cage is furnished, and remained in it for hours and even days together. But not there, poor thing, can its swimming powers be displayed, since in close coils it completely fills it. Notwithstanding these drawbacks of London life, the Gardens can now boast of three of these valuable snakes; one of which has been a resident since 1869; while those in Paris have not survived any length of time.

One still more remarkable characteristic of the anaconda is that, like the sea-snakes (_Hydrophidæ_), but unlike the python, it produces its young alive. We have long been accustomed to think that only vipers produce live young--and hence their name--and that all the non-venomous snakes lay eggs. But snakes, so far as those in captivity are concerned, are continually doing what is not expected of them. Zoological Gardens afford valuable opportunities to students for acquiring knowledge of the form, size, habits, &c. of animals, and an occasional insight into their modes of life unattainable otherwise. This is especially the case regarding the Ophidians; creatures which in their native haunts are so retiring, inaccessible, and mostly nocturnal, that less has been known of them than of almost any other tribe of creatures. Regarding the subject in question, several very important zoological facts have recently been established at the Gardens, and we may add, to the surprise of the naturalist world in England. In 1862 (the same year in which the pythoness laid her hundred eggs), the then but slightly known non-venomous English snake _Coronella lævis_ gave birth to a family of six live young ones in a cage in London; and several other harmless snakes in the London ophidarium have also afforded cause for surprise, not only in producing live young, but in manifesting a very decided care for them. Some New-world species have been examples of this; as, for instance, the 'garter-snake,' the 'chicken-snake,' and the 'yellow boa' of Jamaica (_Chilobothrus inornatus_), the latter on several occasions, and sometimes depositing eggs _at the same time_, but the eggs proving bad.

Mr Philip Henry Gosse, when in Jamaica nearly thirty years ago, gave much careful attention to the habits of this 'yellow boa,' a snake which sometimes attains eight or ten feet in length and is extremely active. He records a great deal of highly interesting matter concerning the _chilobothrus_; and, as a careful and conscientious observer, his testimony is of much value. That this snake when at liberty lays eggs, was well known, nests with eggs in them being often found. In one case a 'yellow boa' was seen issuing from a narrow passage in a bank, which when dug into was found to lead to a cavity lined with leaves and soft trash, and containing eggs. This hole had been excavated, because the dry crumbled earth was discharged at the entrance, where it lay in a heap. The passage was only just large enough to admit the snake, and the soft rubbish within must have been carried there. We cannot positively assert that the snake constructed this skilful hiding-place for herself, but if she did, she must have forced out the earth as the burrowing snakes do, or by the muscular undulations of her body; and she must have conveyed the leaves there in her mouth. Snakes do, we know, sometimes make nests by coiling themselves round and round to form a hollow. Under either circumstance maternal instinct is undeniable; and if _chilobothrus_ merely discovered and appropriated the nest of some other creature, her intelligence is still worth recording.

We knew an instance where a snake in captivity exhibited restlessness and uneasiness, crawling about the cage as if in search of something. Those who had the care of it suspected she was with eggs, and placed some sand in the cage. This appeared to satisfy her, and the eggs were deposited. Mr Gosse had a Jamaica boa in the same condition. For a long time it manifested discomfort and restlessness, being savage and in every way objectionable, till at length it produced a family of young ones. Knowing it was the habit of this snake to incubate its eggs, Mr Gosse was greatly surprised at the event; and the startling question occurred to him, that when circumstances are unfavourable for the deposition of eggs, could a snake retain them until the young are hatched?

Mr Gosse's surmises have been entirely confirmed both by similar occurrences at the Zoological Gardens and by other writers, who in the subsequent interval have also given careful attention to the habits of Ophidians, and have produced valuable scientific works on the subject. It is now an ascertained fact that not _chilobothrus_ only but several other oviparous species may at pleasure be rendered viviparous by retarding the deposition of their eggs when circumstances are unfavourable for them! In fact we find that we must almost discard those old distinctions of _oviparous_, _viviparous_, and _ovoviviparous_; which German authors tell us are not founded on any other ground than a greater or less development of the fetus in the egg at the time of laying; or on the nature of the exterior covering of the egg; which is thicker and leathery in those which take some time in hatching, and slighter and membranous in those which are hatched either before or on deposition.

In serpents the eggs differ from those of birds by undergoing a sort of incubation from the very first, so that whenever examined, the embryo more or less advanced will be found. In the case of the pythoness of 1862, an egg was examined on the fifteenth day of incubation, and found to contain a living embryo; a noteworthy fact, as the python incubates for fifty-six days before hatching her eggs. Observations with the eggs of _chilobothrus_ are attended by the same results--namely the fetus in a certain stage of development is discovered whenever a gravid snake is killed and examined. The young ones of the boa in the London collection were perfectly developed and active, climbing all over their cage as soon as they saw daylight. One family consisted of thirty-three; another of eight; and another of fourteen. The activity and daring of the snakelings were amazing, affording ample proof of their perfect development. They were always on the defensive, shewing fight on the slightest molestation. When the keeper put his hand into the nest among them they seized upon it and held on so tightly with their teeth, that on raising his hand they hung to it, wriggling and undulating like a waving golden tassel. I ventured to take up one of these aggressive little reptiles, but could scarcely hold it, from its energetic wrigglings and contortions. It constricted my fingers tightly enough to prove its singular instincts, and bit me savagely with its sharp little teeth; but my glove being on, I permitted this, glad of so good an opportunity for making personal observations.

It was said of the python that notwithstanding her care and vigilance so long as she was incubating, when her snakelings were born she took no notice of them. This may not always be the case. Vipers we know are extremely watchful over their young; other snakes are often seen accompanied by a young brood; and in the Jamaica boa maternal affection is exhibited in no slight degree. A lady visiting the Gardens compassionated one of these young families on the gravelly floor of their cage, and brought a quantity of cotton wool, which was placed in one corner. She was rewarded by seeing the luxury fully appreciated, mother and little ones all huddling into it immediately.

That these non-venomous snakes thus produce their young under _abnormal_ conditions is further confirmed by the varying size and appearance of the offspring, and by their being more or less enveloped in the shell-covering. Some are born quite coiled in the ruptured shell, others with portions of it clinging about them, and others again entirely free. Sometimes they are, as it were, imbedded in the coriaceous covering. This was conspicuously the case with the anaconda's progeny, but her young ones had every appearance of having been a long while dead. The first of the six was freer from the shell than the others, and about a foot and a half in length.

Snake-life is altogether marvellous. The power which some snake mothers possess of retarding the deposition of their eggs, and we have reason to believe, sometimes even the young when circumstances are unpropitious for her to produce them, seems to us specially curious. _Chilobothrus_ is known to have had both eggs and a living brood. So has _Coronella lævis_. Of the latter, some German ophiologists state that it is 'always viviparous;' others 'occasionally' so. In her native Hampshire woods she has been seen with a young brood about her; but there seems no satisfactory evidence of any eggs having been found. Time and careful notings only can substantiate this and many other singular facts regarding these 'wise' and 'subtle' creatures, hitherto surrounded by prejudice and but little studied. We, not well versed in Ophidian biographies, might have expected the anaconda to lay eggs because her cousin the pythoness did so; and we might have also speculated upon her incubating them, as the python did. But she has produced a perfectly developed though dead family of six, instead; a circumstance of so much interest to naturalists, that the loss of the young ones is to be regretted though not wondered at. Captured from her native lagoons, and shut out from the light of day in a box just large enough to contain her, this 'good swimmer' arrives alive; thus proving her amazing powers of endurance; but she has had no fitting place in which to deposit her young, and they died unborn. Still it is a noteworthy fact in the annals of zoology. At first, from the result of observation, the incubation of the python was 'suspected;' then it became confirmed; and the birth of young coronellas also. From this it is evident that we cease to declare that only _vipers_ produce live young; or, according to the original signification of the word, a boa, a coronella, and several other non-venomous snakes would be 'vipers!'

Again, it is remarkable that these peculiarities of reproduction are not confined to particular families and genera; because some coronellas lay eggs, some incubate them, and others bring forth a live brood. So also, while some of the _Boaidæ_ lay eggs, the anaconda is completely viviparous.

We would venture to urge upon those lovers of nature who dwell 'remote from towns' the value of careful observation and a noting down of what appears unusual, even of the habits of the much persecuted snake.

C. H.

PLAYTIME AT OXFORD.

'What is to be done this afternoon?' is a question invariably asked by scores of undergraduates, either at the well-supplied breakfast-table (for whatever men do not learn at Oxford, they at least learn to eat a good breakfast), or by those victims of procrastination who leave everything to the last moment, just as the scout is bringing up the more modest luncheon.

There are certain rules at the university--social rules I mean--which, though unwritten, are not to be broken save under severe penalties, such as being entered among that class of undergraduates yclept 'smugs.' Of these unwritten laws, one of the best and most universal enacts, that a great part of the afternoon shall be spent outside the college, presumably in active and healthy exercise, even if it be but a sharp constitutional. Not that this is a hardship, or that the answers to the question, 'What's to be done?' and the modes of spending these two or three hours, are monotonous or circumscribed. Far from it. Many places may be more full of life and amusement than Oxford in the morning and evening; but few, I am sure, can surpass the bill of amusement which Alma Mater presents to us after lunch.

Every taste can find appropriate satisfaction, save perhaps the taste for picturesque scenery, in which the neighbourhood of Oxford, to use a 'varsity term, 'does not come out strong.' Still, if I may believe report (never believe an undergraduate when he tells you a tale of a fellow he knew), Cambridge is rather worse off. We have Shotover and Bagley Wood to set against their Gog Magog Hills. Be that as it may, simple walking does not find many advocates, except on Sunday, or as a stop-gap on some off-day when rackets and the river begin to pall, as every amusement seems to do by the end of term. I have even heard a member of an eight-oar say after six weeks' daily attendance at the river, that 'he really felt he'd had almost enough of it.' And it _is_ rather an objection to rowing, that as soon as your blisters have hardened and you feel indifferent about the cushion on your chair, the act of pulling your own weight and a trifle over begins to have a certain sameness.

To return to walking. Much of that otherwise tame exercise is involved in going to witness sports of various kinds. Almost every day in winter there is either a football match or a racket match, or the trial eights or some college sports to be inspected; or we may look in at the fives-courts or at the gymnasium, and see Tompkins vaulting the high-horse, which he does not do so well as at lunch; or to the dog-fancier's in ---- Street, and look over Jenkens's bull-pup. Not that there is any ratting going on of course, or such a thing as a badger in the county; but these are lazy ways of getting through the time, and except occasionally, none of our party is reduced to them. No; for Brown votes for rackets: a game active enough, I can vouch. It looks so easy to hit the ball with the great battledore-shaped racket--until you try: perhaps as easy as battledore and shuttlecock, now ousted by lawn-tennis. So just descend into the black-lined arena, and you will discover that the small sphere you aim at finds out all sorts of impossible angles, and dodges you in a way that no fellow can stand; so that rackets is rather dispiriting to a beginner. Having only once got up the ball in the course of an hour, and having sharply struck myself on the side of the head with my own racket, to say nothing of the curious attraction of the ball to my shoulder-blades, I determined that that should be my last as well as first visit to a racket court, charming as the game doubtless is when well played. So Brown will not ask me to make up his four for Holywell. There are also one or two tennis courts in Oxford; but I do not think that the favourite game of the Merry Monarch is very generally played except on grass.

I shall not part from Brown yet, but shall accompany him to Holywell and get a hand in the fives-court. It is a hot game, but not a graceful one, like rackets. It is all very well to poise your racket overhead, sway backwards and send the whizzing ball against the wall. But it is quite another thing to flounder after it with outstretched hands, which seem monstrous in their hot clumsy gloves, and missing it by a hair's-breadth, 'vainly beat the air.' Say what you like against it, there is no better exercise, though I should not think of bringing a certain young lady to witness my performances there, any more than I should of asking her to come to hear me viva-voce'd in the schools.

But I have wandered from the subject to the fair sex. To return to Jones, who is going to scull as far as Sandford in the fairy outrigger in which he is proud to disport himself. With some reason too, for the equal dip of the sculls in an outrigged skiff is hard to attain, and the art of turning those craft in any reasonable space is known only to a few of the initiated. I have always found that when I steered 'by the bank,'

E'en for a calm unfit,
I'd steer too near the sands to boast my wit,

as Dryden says; though I am not quite sure that he exactly means that. Others of our luncheon-party are bound by college patriotism to go down to the barges and undergo their day's training for the Torpids. These are of the stalwart sort; but they will not have a very pleasant time of it, nor will Jones in his skiff, for the wind is rather strong, and the water even on the lower river must be pretty rough; so two of our company, not of the stalwart kind, are going to the Freshman's river to engage one of those sailing-vessels called at Oxford a 'centre-board.' The wind is blowing fairly up stream; but they will have some trouble at a certain corner called 'Blackjack;' and I shall not be surprised if their new flannels are somewhat shrunken by to-morrow. Still they can swim; and if they can't, they ought to.

Besides the Rugby votaries of football, the Association and other clubs play in the parks. The practice of the former is the most interesting to watch; and though this pastime is, not without some reason, deemed by many to be silly and even barbarous, it seems to be generally largely patronised by spectators.

We must not neglect the new running ground with its comfortable pavilion, where, if we do not wish to take a trot ourselves, we may read _The Field_, and watch through the window the training of the crack whose performances it records. And talking of running, there is or was a Hare and Hounds Club, which numbered some distinguished runners among its members; and one college at least had lately, and perhaps still has, a pack of beagles. If a man be of very solitary habits and much inclined to hide him from his kind, there is jack-fishing in many parts of the river, engaged in which contemplative recreation he may moralise to his heart's content. There is a Gun-club too; to say nothing of the hunters, hacks, and pony-carts which may be obtained for a consideration. I don't know whether the hunters are screws, for I've never tried one, and for the same reason I don't know whether they are dear or cheap; on the whole, however, I should be inclined to say _not_ cheap. Then there is a bicycling club, whose members perform immense distances in wonderful times, and who talk of going to Aylesbury or to Banbury and back, as outsiders do of Cowley and Cuddesden. And if you are one of the country's defenders, are there not drills in St John's Gardens, or parades in the Broad, and evolutions of all kinds in the parks? harder work than the road-making lately fashionable at Hinksey, near which, I believe, are the rifle butts. Playing at labourers has gone out, I believe.

But the summer term is the term for fun. Woful is the man who is in the schools in the bright days of June, when the sun at length gets through the Oxford fogs. The summer term is, technically speaking, two terms, for there are four terms in the 'varsity year, though no 'varsity man ever yet knew the distinctive names of them; and so the summer terms are twice as jolly as the other two, though only equal to one in length. Ah me! I shall soon have cause to sigh for the days that are no more. Then cricket and lawn-tennis, the eight-oar races, the lazy punt and nimbler canoe, cider-cup and skittles at Godstow, bathing at Parsons, archery and croquet, and cousins and sisters, and the occasional flower-show, will recur amongst the standing-orders of the past!

Every afternoon, when it is fine, the cricket-grounds, most of which are at Cowley, present a lively scene. The practising nets are occupied by batsmen, the sound of whose strokes on the much-enduring leather is like the tap, tap, tapping at the hollow beech-tree, or at the garden-gate, according to the taste of the listener. If you go in front of the nets, keep your eyes and ears open, or you may get knocked down by a stray ball--a danger kept constantly in your mind by frequent cries of 'Head!' which cause many to anticipate the bump in store for one. A man does not look to advantage at the moment when he becomes conscious of a descending cricket-ball in close proximity to the back of his head. In the centre of the ground a college match is being played; and in the tiny structure often graced by the title of Pavilion much beer is being consumed. At the further end, a couple of games of lawn-tennis are being briskly kept up. Altogether, the college ground is not a bad place in which to spend the afternoon, even though you may not be A1 at cricket.

As to the river, every visitor to Oxford in the summer term has seen that, and its varied and variegated load of eight-oars, four-oars, dingies, whiffs, skiffs, cockle-shells, pairs, punts, and coal-barges. For my own part I prefer the Cherwell and the cushioned punt. It is not a bad plan to get on shore in the Botanical Gardens, and stroll up the High as far as Cooper's, wherein to consume strawberry ices. I do not much affect the archery and croquet, nor yet the flower-shows; very good in their way, I daresay, but you can enjoy them at home, where a racket court, or even a skiff, is not always handy, and where skittles are apt to be voted low, and the secrets of cider-cup hidden from the butler's ken. So make your hay while the sun shines. And almost as fast as the skittles fall before the practised hurler, fly the nine weeks of the summer term, which comes to most men but three times in their lives; and if enjoyed again, must be so generally only at the expense of a disastrous 'plough,' a catastrophe which necessitates extra reading and perhaps a change of residence.

So the curtain falls upon the glories of the final tableau, the Commemoration, a tableau which has sadly wanted its proper amount of blue-fire lately. Even the Long Walk is beginning to fail as an avenue, and there are some gaps in the foliage, I think. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy: but even though he _does_ work, and 'reads' when he ought, Jack need not be dull withal at dear old Oxford.

THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

While the President of the Royal Society is travelling in America, studying, in company with Professor Asa Gray, the peculiar vegetation at the foot of the Rocky Mountains--while Dr Tyndall is solacing himself with a quiet holiday in his own house on the Bel Alp--while spectroscopists are rejoicing in the new 'grating' constructed by Professor Rutherford, which multiplies to an extraordinary degree their power of observation--while physicists and naturalists are betaking themselves to inland villages or to remote bays on the sea--while amateurs are looking at the one hundred and seven photographs of the Arctic expedition recently published by the Admiralty--while artists, engravers, and printers are at work on the voyage of the _Challenger_--while readers are acquainting themselves with Mr Darwin's new book, _The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species_--while the British Association are reckoning up the profit and loss of their meeting at Plymouth--while the promoters of the Ordnance Survey of Palestine are appealing for funds to finish their work--while geographers and adventurers are soliciting means for the exploration of Africa--while Europe is trying to prevent immigration of the Colorado beetle--while Mr Varley is attempting by telephone to carry music from Her Majesty's Theatre to the 'other side of the water'--while the Treasury are considering whether they will ask parliament to vote three million pounds for the building of the much wanted new public offices--while Mr Berthollet is pointing out 'the possibility of producing temperatures really approaching three thousand degrees'--while Mr Rarchaert is shewing that his locomotive, combining the two essentials of adherence and flexibility, will travel safely round curves of two hundred and fifty mètres radius--while Mr Cornet, chief engineer of mines in Belgium, is endeavouring to prove that compressed air can be used in mines; and while the Social Science Council are settling their programme for amendment of law, repression of crime, promotion of education, improvement of health, furtherance of economy and trade, and diffusion of art--while all this is going on, science, art, and philosophy progress in a way that implies force within as well as without.

Where steam is employed, especially on board ship, it not unfrequently happens that a sudden occasion arises for exercise of the utmost power of the engines, and that to this gain extreme power for the short time required is of more importance than economy of coal. The method hitherto adopted to effect this object is to drive more air through the fire, or to throw a jet of steam into the chimney.

Mr Bertin, a French marine engineer, has proved that the best method is to throw jets of slightly compressed air into the base of the chimney by means of a centrifugal ventilator, or at higher pressure by employing a blowing-machine working with a piston. Under the transitory action of these jets of air the combustion in the furnace is doubled, and the ship, like a warrior in extremity, may make efforts impossible in ordinary circumstances. The increase in the consumption of coal is not more than twenty per cent.; and the method having been tried on board one of the national frigates, _La Résolue_, has proved so effectual, that its adoption is only a question of time. Mr Bertin has described his method and the principles on which it is based in a paper to be published in the _Bulletin_ of the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale.

The same Society have just recognised the merits of an English chemist, Mr Walter Weldon, by conferring on him their Lavoisier medal--_grande medaille d'honneur_--for his discoveries and improvements in the art of manufacturing chlorine. Formerly all the manganese used in the process was wasted, and manganese became scarcer and dearer. Waste is an opprobrium in chemical operations. Mr Weldon shewed a way by which the manganese could be reoxydised over and over again indefinitely; and at once an offensive part of the process was got rid of, and the price of chlorine fell thirty per cent. This of course cheapened all the articles, and they are numerous, in the production of which chlorine plays a part; and Mr Weldon's method has been adopted wherever chemicals are manufactured on a great scale. Mr Lamy, who drew up the statement of the grounds on which the medal was awarded, said: 'If we have not the good fortune to designate a Frenchman for your suffrages, at least we have the satisfaction to present an inventor belonging to a friendly nation, the first among all for the development and the potency of its chemical industry.'

If this be true, there is a chance for another ingenious chemist for the Council General of Guadeloupe offer a reward of one hundred thousand francs to the inventor of a new method of extracting the juice of the sugar-cane, or of manufacturing sugar.

Hitherto it has been thought that to produce a good black dye the co-operation of a metallic substance or of a chlorate, or both combined, was indispensable. The question arose: Were those ingredients really indispensable? Mr Rosenstiehl first shewed that the metal might be dispensed with, and recently, as may be seen in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, Mr Coquillion has proved that the chlorate is not required, for in the one case as in the other, the use of 'nascent' or active oxygen will effect the desired object. We are informed that the fact observed by the French chemist 'is an elegant demonstration of the action of active oxygen upon aniline salts; that it will perhaps enable us to obtain blacks derived from aniline in a state of greater purity, and to hasten the moment when we shall know their elementary composition; a question which, in view of its great interest, has been proposed for a prize by the Industrial Society of Mulhausen.'

Mr Cornet, whose name has been mentioned above, in a mathematical discussion of the question, says that compressed air would be largely used in mining operations 'were it possible to keep the temperature of the air from rising during compression much above that of the atmosphere, and from falling during expansion to the temperature of freezing water.' And he thinks that he has found 'the means for attaining this end in the use of water-spray, which could be introduced into the cylinder of the compressor, and into that of the machine using the air in the mine.' The practical details are not yet made known; but if they succeed, 'the use of compressed air in mines will soon become general, and the problem of mining at any depth will be solved.'

One part of the method devised by Mr Cornet had been previously thought of; for in 1875 an air-compressor was working in the St Gothard tunnel, of which it was said: 'The heat produced by compression is reduced by the circulation of cold water in the walls of the cylinder, in the interior of the piston and its rod; and an injection of water-spray at the two extremities of the cylinder completes the cooling.' When the compressors were at work they supplied to the tunnel fifteen cubic mètres of air per minute.

When messages were first sent by telegraph, many persons were exceedingly puzzled to understand how they were sent; and now the telephone has come to disturb them with another puzzle. But scientific men have long known that 'galvanic music,' as it is called, was discovered forty years ago, that an electro-magnet on being suddenly magnetised or demagnetised gives out audible sounds, and that many notices of the curious fact were printed in English and foreign journals. Professor Graham Bell, whose experiments have been already mentioned in these pages (_ante_ 208, 415), succeeded in making the sounds, which were commonly very faint, audible to a large number of persons. This was accomplished, as he explains, 'by interposing a tense membrane between the electro-magnet and its armature. The armature in this case consisted of a piece of clock-spring glued to the membrane. This form of apparatus,' he continues, 'I have found invaluable in all my experiments. The instrument was connected with a parlour organ, the reeds of which were so arranged as to open and close the circuit during their vibration. When the organ was played, the music was loudly reproduced by the telephonic receiver in a distant room. When chords were played upon the organ, the various notes composing the chords were emitted simultaneously by the armature of the receiver.'

'The simultaneous production of musical notes of different pitch by the electric current,' continues Professor Bell, 'was foreseen by me as early as 1870, and demonstrated during the year 1873. Elisha Gray of Chicago, and Paul La Cour of Copenhagen, lay claim to the same discovery. The fact that sounds of different pitch can be simultaneously produced upon any part of a telegraphic circuit is of great practical importance; for the duration of a musical note can be made to signify the dot or dash of the Morse alphabet; and thus a number of telegraphic messages may be sent simultaneously over the same wire without confusion, by making signals of a definite pitch for each message.'

By instalments of news from the Pacific we hear of the tremendous earthquake that occurred last May; but for precise details we shall have to wait until reports are published in the scientific journals of the United States. Meanwhile, we learn that the great volcano of Kilauea in Hawaii began to be restless on the first of the month; a few days later huge columns of lava were thrown up, vehement jets of steam burst forth from a long range of fissures, and all the startling phenomena of a mighty eruption, including drifts of Pele's hair, were observed. This evidence of disturbance deep down in the earth was corroborated by an earthquake, which about half-past eight on the evening of the 9th terrified and devastated the coast of Peru, and occasioned greater ruin than the similar calamity in 1868. Iquique is said to be completely destroyed, and other towns and cities along two hundred miles of coast suffered more or less severely. As usual, the commotion of the land produced a commotion of the water, and the sea rolling great waves upon the shore, intensified the havoc. The waves varied in height from ten to sixty feet; and we are told that 'four miles of the embankment of the railway were swept away;' and that 'locomotives, cars, and rails were hurled about by the sea like so many playthings.'

Also, as is usual in such catastrophes, the earthquake wave was propagated; and between four and five of the morning of the 10th, it (that is the sea) rushed upon the Hawaiian Islands in waves varying from three to thirty-six feet in height. Thus in eight hours the resistless oscillation had traversed the five thousand miles which separate the islands from the South American continent.

From this brief sketch it is obvious that there is much in this calamitous visitation to interest the physicist and geologist as well as the philanthropist. Information will in all probability be communicated from other places until the remotest points at which the disturbance was felt shall have been ascertained.

As relating to this subject we remark that the hair of Pele--a Hawaiian goddess--above mentioned can be produced artificially in a blast furnace. It has been described in former pages of this _Journal_ as 'slag cotton.'

We learn by a communication from Hawaii to the American Journal of Science and Arts that a grand outburst occurred in February last, but ceased quite suddenly, to the disappointment of visitors who came expecting to see a volcanic display. As the vessel was steaming away, they saw in deep water, a mile off Kealakekua, the place where Captain Cook was killed, a remarkable heaving and bubbling, intermingled with jets of steam, and throwing up of pumice and light scoria. This commotion was still going on five weeks afterwards. It was occasioned by a subterranean lava-stream which, after rending the mountain slopes with deep fissures, found an outlet under the sea.

The Weather Review published by the United States Signal Service contains details of the wave which may be accepted as trustworthy. 'About 8.50 P.M. of May 9, heavy earthquake shocks were felt over the region between Arica and Mexillones (border of Peru and Bolivia). The oceanic wave which immediately followed was of great violence along the adjoining South American coast, and was felt also as far north as California, the rise at Anaheim being twelve feet in a few minutes. At Callao, Peru, the wave was felt at 11 P.M.; at San Francisco was perceptible at 6.18 A.M. May 10, with increase to a maximum of fourteen inches at 8.20. It reached the Sandwich Islands, eastern Hawaii, at Hilo, at 4 A.M.; and the great wave, thirty-six feet high, came in at 4.45. At Honolulu it was first felt at 4.45, and was followed by the great wave at five o'clock.'

In a subsequent communication it is stated that thirty-six hours after the inrush of the great wave at Hilo, the rising and falling still continued, 'the incoming and outflowing wave occupying about an hour, the latter leaving the channels nearly bare.'

Our American cousins are not disposed to accept their plague of locusts as an inevitable calamity, for the Entomological Commission appointed by the government at Washington have published two numbers of a _Bulletin_, with woodcuts, giving information on the natural history of the devouring insects and on the various methods proposed for their destruction. It is shewn that by systematic endeavours before the creatures get their wings they may be destroyed on a great scale, for then it is possible to drive them in enormous 'schools' or flocks as easily as sheep. Millions fall into long straight ditches dug as traps and there perish; millions more are crushed by rollers; hogs and poultry devour them greedily; and a number of ingenious machines stand ready to catch the winged locusts in the air or to capture them as they crawl. One of these machines produces a powerful upward blast which sucks up the crawlers from the ground, and drives them into a receptacle where they are smashed to a pulp. American ingenuity is roused by the swarming inroad, and it will be interesting to watch the struggle. Meanwhile the States adjacent to the Rocky Mountains are anxiously asking which is to conquer, man or locust?

Concerning the Colorado beetle, Mr Riley, State Entomologist for Missouri, reports that the eastward progress of the insect 'was at the average rate of eighty-eight miles a year, and that it has now invaded nearly a million and a half square miles, or more than one-third the area of the United States. It does not thrive where the thermometer reaches one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and hence it may never extend its range very far south of the territory now occupied; but its northern spread is not limited; and it may push to the northernmost limit of the potato-growing country.'