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department, and each knowing its own duties. We may, however, not the less admire the solitary wasp or bee, who begins and finishes every part of its destined work, just as we admire the ingenious mechanic who perfects something useful or ornamental entirely by the labour of his own hands,-whether he be the patient Chinese carver, who cuts his decorated boxes out of a piece of ivory, or the turner of Europe, who produces every variety of elegant form by the skilful application of the simplest means.

Our island abounds with many varieties of solitary wasps and bees; and as a specimen of the entertainment that you may derive from observing the operations of these creatures, I shall give you a description of the nests of one of them.

In September 1828, says Mr Rennie, I observed, on the east wall of a house at Lee in Kent, a solitary masonwasp, busy excavating a hole in one of the bricks, about five feet from the ground. Whether there might not have been an accidental hole in the brick before the wasp commenced her labours is unknown; but the brick was one of the hardest of the yellow sort. The most remarkable circumstance in the process of hewing into the brick, was the care of the insect in removing to a distance the fragments which from time to time she succeeded in detaching. It might have been supposed that these fragments would have been tossed out of the hole as the work proceeded without farther concern, as the mole tosses above ground the earth which has been cleared out of its subterranean gallery. The wasp was of a different opinion; for it was possible that a heap of brick chips, at the bottom of the wall, might lead to the discovery of her nest by some of her enemies, particularly by one or other of the numerous tribe of what are called ichneumon flies. These flies are continually prowling about and prying into every corner, to find, by stealth, a nest for their eggs. It might have been some such consideration as this which induced the wasp to carry off the fragments as they were successively detached. That concealment was the motive, indeed, was proved; for one of the fragments, which fell out of the hole by accident, she imme

diately sought for at the bottom of the wall, and carried off with her jaws, like the rest. Within two days the excavation was completed; but it required two other days to line it with a coating of clay, to deposite the eggs, two in number, and, no doubt to imprison a few live spiders or caterpillars, for the young when hatched. After this, the little architect was observed closing up the entrance with a layer of clay. The whole excavation was found, on examination afterwards, to be rather less than an inch in depth. Notwithstanding, however, all the precautions of the careful parent to conceal her nest, it was found out by one of the cuckoo flies, which deposited an egg there; and the grub hatched from it, after devouring one of the wasp grubs, formed itself a cocoon, as did the other undevoured grub of the wasp. Both awaited the return of summer to change into winged insects, burst their cerements, and proceed as their parents did. Lib. of Entertaining Knowledge.

HEROISM OF A PHYSICIAN.

THE plague

of affection was

child, the

violently in Marseilles. Every link the father turned from the

,

from the father: ingratitude no longer indignation. Misery is at its

it thus destroys every generous feeling! The city

a desert, grass grew in the

every step. The physicians

a consultation on the fearful

had

when

you at

in a body to hold

, a funeral

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for which no

only be found out

mysterious opening a

to at

a victim in

yet been discovered. After a long deliberation, they decided, the malady had a peculiar character, which

corpse, an operation which it was

tempt, since the operator must infallibly a few hours, beyond the

of human art to save

him. A dead pause succeeded this fatal

Suddenly a surgeon

and of great celebrity in his

firmly, "Be

Guyon, in the prime of

so: I devote myself for country. To-morrow, at the break of and write down as I

a

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rose and said

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he was rich; and he immediately

justice and piety. A

had never married; ; a will, dictated by

had died of the

in his

house within four-and-twenty hours. Guyon, at dayhimself up in the same room,

break,

pen, an inkstand, and paper. dreadful operation, and

with him

He began, finished the in detail his surgical ope

rations. He then left the room,

the papers into a

vase of vinegar, and afterwards sought the lazaretto, in twelve hours,-a

where he

times more glorious than that of the

ten thousand who, to

his country, rushes on the ranks of the enemy. MADAME DE Genlis.

TRIVIAL OCCURRENCES OFTEN DEVELOP LATENT GENIUS.

It was the accident of the roof of his father's cottage coming down, while he was a child, that first turned the attention of the celebrated James Ferguson to mechanical contrivance. The eminent engineer, John Rennie, used to trace his first notions, in regard to the powers of machinery, to his having been obliged, when a boy, in consequence of the breaking down of a bridge, to go one winter every morning to school by a circuitous road, which carried him past a place where a thrashing-machine was generally at work. The great Linnæus was probably made a botanist by the circumstance of his father having a few rather uncommon plants in his garden. Harrison is said to have been originally inspired with the idea of devoting himself to the constructing of marine time-pieces by his residence in view of the sea. James Tassie, the celebrated modeller and maker of paste gems, commenced life as a stonemason in Glasgow, and was first prompted to aspire to something beyond his humble occupation by having gone on a holiday to see the paintings in an academy for instruction in the fine arts. George Edwards, the naturalist, and author of the splendid book entitled the History of Birds," was in the first instance apprenticed to a London merchant; but the accident of a bedroom being assigned to him, which contained a collection of

66

books on natural history, left by a former lodger of his master's, formed in him so strong an attachment to this study, that he resolved to give up commerce, and devote his life to science. The celebrated Bernard Palissy, to whom France was indebted, in the sixteenth century, for the introduction of the manufacture of enamelled pottery, had his attention first attracted to the art by having one day seen by chance a beautiful enamelled cup which had been brought from Italy. He laboured sixteen years at the attempt to discover the secret of making these cups, and arrived at the discovery after undergoing incredible toil, and submitting to incredible privations; but Palissy was, in all respects, an extraordinary man. In his moral character he displayed a high-mindedness not inferior to the vigour of his understanding. Although a Protestant, he had escaped, through the royal favour, from the massacre of St Bartholomew; but having been soon after shut up in the Bastile, he was visited in his prison by the king, who told him, that if he did not comply with the established religion, he should be forced, however unwillingly, to leave him in the hands of his enemies. "Forced!" replied Palissy. "This is not to speak like a king; but they who force you, cannot force me,—I can die!" He never regained his liberty, but ended his life in the Bastile in the 90th year of his age.

Lib. of Entertaining Knowledge.

THE CAMEL.

THE inhabitants of London, and of other large towns of England, sometimes see the camel led along their streets for exhibition; but the existence of this animal is comparatively miserable when it is led about the rough and often muddy pavements of our towns. The climate of England causes the animal to feel enfeebled. It limps along with difficulty, at a wretched pace, and sluggish, feeble, and almost useless creature. mel has been created with a special adaptation to its native region, the region of hot and sandy deserts. It is constituted to endure the severest hardships in these countries with little inconvenience. Its feet are formed.

appears a

The ca

to tread lightly upon a dry and shifting soil; its nostrils have the capacity of closing so as to shut out the driving sand when the whirlwind scatters it over the desert; it is provided with a peculiar apparatus for retaining water in its stomach, so that it can march from well to well without great inconvenience, although they be several hundred miles apart. And thus, when a company of eastern merchants cross from Aleppo to Bussorah, over a plain of sand which offers no refreshment to the exhausted senses, the whole journey being about eight hundred miles, the camel of the heavy caravan moves cheerfully along, with a burden of six or seven hundred weight, at the rate of twenty miles a-day; while those of greater speed, that carry a man without much other load, go forward at double that pace and daily distance. Patient under his duties, he kneels down at the command of his driver, and rises up cheerfully with his load. He requires no whip or spur during his monotonous march; but, like many other animals, he feels an evident pleasure in musical sounds, and, therefore, when fatigue comes upon him, the driver sings some cheering snatch of his Arabian melodies, and the delighted creature toils forward with a brisker step till the hour of rest arrives, when he again kneels down to have his load removed for a little while. Under a burning sun, upon an arid soil, enduring great fatigue, sometimes without food for days, and seldom completely slaking his thirst more than once during a progress of several hundred miles, the camel is patient and apparently happy. He ordinarily lives to a great age, and is seldom visited by any disease. And why is this? He lives according to the peculiar nature which God has given him; whilst with us, as we sometimes see him in our streets, his nature is outraged, and the purpose of his creation defeated.

The uses which the camel has served in the civilization of mankind, in those countries of the East where civilization first commenced, are incalculable. Unless such an animal had existed in Asia, a country intersected by immense arid plains, the intercourse of mankind would have been confined to small fertile spots; the commodities of one part of that immense region could

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