Another celebrated inn of last cen- | commemorated by a tablet in the front tury, and one which is often con- wall of a modern building in what is founded with that just described, was now called St. Mary Street. the White Horse Hostel. It was situated off St. Mary's Wynd, being entered through Boyd's, or the White Horse, Close. As in the case of other places of resort for travellers, the rooms were above the stables, but the house was larger and more comfortable than many of its rivals. Its owner was Mr. James Boyd, a gentleman whose favorite recreation was horse-racing, the course for which at that time was the sands of Leith. And thereby hangs a tale. Local tradition relates that at one period of his career Mr. Boyd's sporting proclivities had brought him to the brink of ruin, when the swiftness of a white horse in his racing-stud retrieved his fortune. Thereupon the grateful owner not only decided to keep the animal in ease and comfort until nature ended its days, but also adopted its portrait as his sign. Eventually Boyd retired with a fortune of several thousand pounds, and, as an indication of the completeness of his inn's appointment, it may be added that at the displenishing there was a napery in the house valued at £500. Among the many celebrities who visited this White Horse Inn was the great dictionarymaker, Dr. Johnson. On his arrival there, in August, 1773, he sent this brief note to his devoted admirer: "Saturday night: Mr. Johnson sends Even the best of these hostelries his compliments to Mr. Boswell, hav- would find but scant favor in the eyes ing just arrived at Boyd's." When of a modern traveller. Hugo Arnot, Boswell came upon the scene, the the historian of Edinburgh, writing in learned doctor was pouring out the 1779, says that "all these inns were vials of his wrath upon a slovenly mean buildings, their apartments dirty waiter who had dared to sweeten his and dismal; and, if waiters happen to lemonade with nature's sugar-tongs. be out of the way, a stranger will perThe indignant doctor threw the lemon-haps be shocked with the novelty of ade out of the window, and seemed being shown into a room by a dirty, inclined to pitch the waiter after it, sunburnt wench without shoes or stockbut was appeased by his friend, and ings." An irascible traveller pithily the couple walked arm in arm up the High Street to Boswell's house in James's Court, Lawnmarket. "It was a dusky night," writes Boswell; "I could not prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh." The site of the White Horse Inn is

At the foot of St. Mary's Wynd and adjoining the Cowgate Port was another famous inn, which, being situated at the junction of the line of both roadways, was a resort of travellers from the east as well as of those from the south. This was Peter Ramsay's inn, which was advertised by its owner in 1776 as "a good house for entertainment, good stables for above one hundred horses, and sheds for above twenty carriages." Ramsay retired in 1790 with a fortune of £10,000, and took up his residence at Barnton, a beautiful estate situated a few miles west from Edinburgh, which he had purchased four years before from the widowed Lady Glenorchy. His descendant, the owner of the racehorse Lanercost, was a famous sportsman of his day. He was notable as the friend of Captain Robert Barclay, of Urie, the celebrated pedestrian, and along with him horsed and drove the Defiance coach to and from Aberdeen.

For travellers from the west, who entered the city through the West Port, there was the White Hart Inn, situated in the Grassmarket an old edifice which still survives; and the Black Bull Inn, a commodious house in the Pleasance, was another resort of strangers.

described the hardness of his bed by comparing it to "a dish-clout stretched on a gridiron." The fact was, these inns were used in the eighteenth century mainly as stables; visitors, unless their stay in the city was to be brief, usually went into lodgings. One of

could

O'er oysters and a dram o' gin

Or haddock lug.

He could regale himself at a dainty
supper :
a bit toasted cheese,

these lodging-house keepers, "the good | subterranean cellars, which were the dame by the Cross," referred to by "howffs" of judges, of literary men, Captain Topham, advertised in 1754 and of the leading citizens. There, that persons who did not bring "their surrounded by the jovial company, he silver plate, tea-china, table-china, and tea-linen can be served in them all." sit fu' snug This enterprising landlady also offered to provide her guests with "wines and spirits and everything in a very genteel manner." Notwithstanding this tempting advertisement, Mrs. Thomson's house was not quite a home from home." Topham's account of such lodgings is corroborated by Hugo Arnot, who says that they were poorly furnished apartments, generally on the For the moderate expenditure of third or fourth floor, up dark and dirty sixpence he could enjoy an excellent stairs, and, he adds, the prices charged supper with such appetizing fare as were very extravagant - evidently a tripe, rizzared haddocks, minced colhereditary failing in lodging-house lops, washing it down with that luskeepers. cious brew, Edinburgh ale, or more

A crumb o' tripe, ham, dish o' peas;
The season fitting,

An egg, or, caller frae the seas,
A fleak or whiting.

ALEX. W. STEWART.

From The Catholic World.

THE ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA.

But there is another side to the pic-potent toddy. Such are a few glimpses ture. If accommodation in the hostel- of the Edinburgh inns and taverns of ries was poor, the fare was cheap and the last century. good. Arnot says that in the Edinburgh of those days men could command luxuries of the table which in London they could scarcely find within the reach of double the same income. "An Edinburgh tavern (if a good one) is the best of all taverns," he says. Claret, a liquor whose introduction into Scotland was traceable to the friendly intercourse with France, was a favorite drink. Chambers says that in public houses and in considerable mansions it was commonly kept on tap. In 1720 an Edinburgh dealer advertised in the Courant "neat claret wine at 11d., strong at 15d.; white wine at 12d.; Rhenish at 16d.; old Hock at 20d.

IMAGINE a country nearly as large as Europe without any of the forms from which domestic animals have descended, unless we except the dingo

the native dog-which, however, is believed to have been introduced by man. We may liken Australia to a gigantic plate. Almost perfectly flat in the centre, it gradually rises as you approach the coast; its vast plains are covered in many parts with dense all per bottle." Cherry sack was 2s. scrub; the rivers are insignificant 4d. per pint, and English ale 4d. per compared with those of other counbottle. Among the poorer classes two-tries; and with its salt lakes, its sandpenny ale was the liquor most in storms, and a climate in the interior so vogue. Dinners were charged at mod-arid that a drouth has been known to erate rates. In the middle of the eigh- last for twenty-six months, we do not teenth century a prominent lawyer wonder that this isolated, lost land — dined daily along with a friend in the perhaps millions of years separated Lawnmarket for "twa groats and a from its parent continent possesses a piece," as they expressed it. A groat life-system so very primitive and pewas equal to fourpence. culiar that naturalists have agreed to After dusk the adventurous stranger make Australia a separate region. We who wanted to see real life in Edin- meet here two new orders - Marsupials burgh could dive into one of those dark' and Monotremes

which are found no

where else, excepting the opossum in | of a duck; its body is fifteen inches America. And these animals are the long, and the feet are webbed. The lowest in organization of all mammals, echidna also swims very well, but its as well as the earliest to appear in geological time. By a marsupial we mean a mammal which is destitute of a placenta to nourish the foetus, and which is provided with a pouch (marsupium) in which it places its immature, embryonic young.

feet are not webbed. These two mammals exceed in strangeness any other mammals in existence, and show a marked affinity to birds and reptiles. Their skulls, as in the case of birds, are devoid of sutures, while the front extremities are joined to the breast bone by a coracoid and an epicoracoid, the same as in reptiles. But the strangest fact connected with the monotremes is that they do not bring forth their young alive, but lay eggs; and after the little one emerges from the shell it is suckled by the mother. Their eggs, moreover, in their stages of development are very like the eggs of reptiles, and outwardly resemble those of a turtle. A singular lizard is the Australian frilled lizard, so-called from a mass of loose skin dangling from its neck, and which it can elevate into

not disturbed, sits upright like a kangaroo, and when it runs it makes long, high jumps, sometimes five feet high.

Marsupials vary greatly in habits and looks, and range in size from a mouse to a deer. Some go on all fours, others move on their hind legs alone; some eat grass and leaves, others live on meat, insects, and honey. Their brain development is extremely small, and they manifest little if any affection for their offspring; they are never seen to play with them, and appear to care for nothing but their own stomachs. The most intelligent of Australian marsupials is the opossum; and here let us say that the American opossum is the most highly organized of the marsupial a ruff. This little creature, when it is order. The Australian flying-squirrel is closely related to the opossum; and the smallest of this family, which is not bigger than a mouse, is able to skim through the air and alight with accuracy at a point eighty paces distant. The so-called Australian bear (Phascolarctus cinereus) is quite a harmless marsupial, which feeds on grass, and is in no way related to the bear family. When the young one is old enough to quit the pouch, it perches itself on its mother's back and goes with her wherever she goes. But the marsupial tiger is a carnivorous beast, fierce and very destructive to sheep and young cattle. Lower even in organization than the marsupials are the monotremes. These creatures, which consist of two genera the Echidna, or native hedgehog, and the Ornithorhynchus, or duck-mole - have the marsupial bones but not the pouch, nor have they any teeth. The ornithorhynchus (which has rudimentary teeth not piercing the gum) is possessed of jaws very like the bill

The jungle-hen of Australia (Megapodius tumulus), and the brush-turkey (Talegalla) are curious birds. They construct with their powerful feet a mound of earth and fallen leaves in which they bury their eggs, where, reptile-like, they are hatched by the artificial heat generated by the fermenting of the vegetable and other refuse matter. But it has only lately been discovered how the young birds get out of the mound: they lie on their backs and work their way up to the surface with their feet. In the caverns of Australia the fossil remains of many extinct mammals have come to light belonging to the tertiary period. They are all marsupials, and allied to the ones now in existence; but none are of an earlier age than the tertiary. One of these extinct animals, the diprotodon, related to the kangaroo, was almost as big as an elephant.

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Winter nights for thinkin' long! Round But a curl o' hair on Molly's head, ye'll

OVER here in England I'm helpin' with And nothing me your heartless splendors