28 COUNTRY GENTLEMEN AS NATURALISTS.

COUNTRY GENTLEMEN AS NATURALISTS.

THERE is something, too, to be highly respected and praised in the conduct of a country gentleman who, instead of exhausting life in the chase, has dedicated a considerable portion of it to the pursuit of knowledge. There are so many temptations to complete idleness in the life of a country gentleman, so many examples of it, and so much loss to the community from it, that every exception from the practice is deserving of great praise. Some country gentlemen must remain to do the business of their counties; but, in general, there are many more than are wanted; and, generally speaking also, they are a class who should be stimulated to greater exertions. Sir Joseph Banks, a squire of large fortune in Lincolnshire, might have given up his existence to double-barrelled guns and persecutions of poachers and all the benefits derived from his wealth, industry, and personal exertion in the cause of science, would have been lost to the community.-[E. R. 1826.]

MR. WATERTON'S WANDERINGS.

MR. WATERTON complains, that the trees of Guiana are not more than six yards in circumference-a magnitude in trees which it is not easy for a Scotch imagination to reach.-[E. R. 1826.]

THE FORESTS OF GUIANA.

How far does the gentle reader imagine the campanero may be heard, whose size is that of a jay? Perhaps 300 yards. Poor innocent, ignorant reader! unconscious of

CUI BONO.-IN SUSPENSE.

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what Nature has done in the forests of Cayenne, and measuring the force of tropical intonation by the sounds of a Scotch duck! The campanero may be heard three miles!-this single little bird being more powerful than the belfry of a cathedral, ringing for a new dean—just appointed on account of shabby politics, small understanding, and good family!

It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the forests of Cayenne; but we are determined, as soon as a campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the distance measured.—[E. R. 1826.]

CUI BONO.

The

THE toucan has an enormous bill, makes a noise like a puppy dog, and lays his eggs in hollow trees. How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? toucans, to be sure, might retort, to what purpose were gentlemen in Bond Street created? To what purpose were certain foolish prating Members of Parliament created?—pestering the House of Commons with their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not enter into the metaphysics of the toucan. -[E. R. 1826.]

IN SUSPENSE.

THE sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The

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INSECTS IN THE TROPICS.

eagle to the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most extraordinary, he lives not upon the branches, but under them. He moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes his life in suspense—like a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop.[E. R. 1826.]

INSECTS IN THE TROPICS.

INSECTS are the curse of tropical climates. The Bête rouge lays the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you are covered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your flesh, and hatch a large colony of young chigoes in a few hours. They will not live together, but every chigoe sets up a separate ulcer, and has his own private portion of pus. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose; you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches, and snakes, get into the bed; ants eat up the books; scorpions sting you on the foot. Every thing bites, stings, or bruises; every second of your existence you are wounded by some piece of animal life that nobody has ever seen before, except Swammerdam and Meriam. insect with eleven legs is swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine wings is struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over the bread and butter! All nature is alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomological hosts to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Such are the tropics. All this reconciles us to our dews, fogs, vapours, and drizzle -to our apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures--to our old, British, constitutional coughs, sore throats, and swelled faces. - [E. R. 1826.]

THE DANES.-LAPLANDERS.

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THE DANES.

THE Danish character is not agreeable. It is marked by silence, phlegm, and reserve. A Dane is the excess and extravagance of a Dutchman; more breeched, more ponderous, and more saturnine. He is not often a bad member of society in the great points of morals, and seldom a good one in the lighter requisites of manners. His understanding is alive only to the useful and the profitable: he never lives for what is merely gracious, courteous, and ornamental. His faculties seem to be drenched and slackened by the eternal fogs in which he resides; he is never alert, elastic, nor serene.

His state

of animal spirits is so low, that what in other countries would be deemed dejection, proceeding from casual misfortune, is the habitual tenour and complexion of his mind. In all the operations of his understanding he must have time. He is capable of undertaking great journeys; but he travels only a foot pace, and never leaps nor runs. He loves arithmetic better than lyric poetry, and affects Cocker rather than Pindar. He is slow to speak of fountains and amorous maidens: but can take a spell at porisms as well as another; and will make profound and extensive combinations of thought, if you pay him for it, and do not insist that he shall either be brisk or brief.-[E. R. 1803.]

LAPLANDERS.

In reading Mr. Catteau's account of the congealed and blighted Laplanders, we were struck with the infinite delight they must have in dying; the only circumstance in which they can enjoy any superiority over the rest of mankind; or which tends, in their instance, to verify the theory of the equality of human condition.-[E.R.1803.]

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MEDICAL COURAGE. TURKISH DISCIPLINE.

MEDICAL COURAGE.

THE boldness and enterprise of medical men is quite as striking as the courage displayed in battle, and evinces how much the power of encountering danger depends upon habit. Many a military veteran would tremble to feed upon pus; to sleep in sheets running with water; or to draw up the breath of feverish patients. Dr. White might not, perhaps, have marched up to a battery with great alacrity; but Dr. White, in the year 1801, inoculated himself in the arms with recent matter taken from the bubo of a pestiferous patient, and rubbed the same matter upon different parts of his body. With somewhat less of courage, and more of injustice, he wrapt his Arab servant in the bed of a person just dead of the plague. The Doctor died; and the Doctor's man (perhaps to prove his master's theory, that the plague was not contagious) ran away.—The bravery of our naval officers never produced any thing superior to this therapeutic heroism of the Doctor's.[E. R. 1803.]

TURKISH DISCIPLINE.

THERE is at present, in the Turkish army, a curious mixture of the severest despotism in the commander, and the most rebellious insolence in the soldier. When the soldier misbehaves, the Vizier cuts his head off, and places it under his arm. When the soldier is dissatisfied with the Vizier, he fires his ball through his tent, and admonishes him, by these messengers, to a more pleasant exercise of his authority.-[E. R. 1803.]