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Anima-mundi men, a humourist pointed to a white blank in a rude wood-cut, which very ingeniously served for the head of hair in one of the figures.

180. Stone Ships.

When the Duke of Burgundy beseiged Calais, in 1436, he invented the notable project of blocking up the harbour with stone-ships, and sunk six vessels filled with immense stones which were well worked together, and cramped with lead. The experiment failed for this reason, that the Duke had forgotten to take the tides into his calculation; so at low water the stone-ships were left dry, and the people of Calais, men and women alike, amused themselves with pulling them to pieces, and hauling away the wood for fuel, to the great astonishment, the historian adds, of the Duke and his Admirals.

Had this story found its way into the popular histories of England, this

country would have been saved the disgrace of a similar folly, and the ninety thousand pounds which were wasted upon it. But it has been the fashion of modern historians to reject all the circumstances of history, and give only a caput mortuum of results. That a first lord of the admiralty should have read Monstrellet was not to be expected; but it might have been expected that he would have known what the rise of the tide is at Boulogne.

181. Carp.

This fish, not long after its introduction into England, found its way into the Thames "by the violent rage of sundry land floods, that brake open the heads and dams of divers gentlemen's ponds, by which means it became somewhat partaker of this commodity*."

* Holinshed, Vol. 1, p. 81,

I wish some such accident would stock our rivers with that beautiful creature the gold fish; or rather, let me wish that some reader of the Omniana, who may have taken half the pleasure that I have done in walking by the side of the New River in Hertfordshire, and watching the motion of its inhabitants (without a rod in my hand), may take the hint, and transfer some half dozen from a glass globe to one of the slow rivers of the midland counties.

It is well known how slowly the carp multiplies in ponds. Izaak Walton accuses the frogs of destroying them, but I cannot persuade myself to find a true bill against these poor persecuted Dutch nightingales, upon the evi. dence which he produces. The more certain solution is, that they devour their own spawn; and this may be accounted for by the little room they have to range in search of food. Be

sides, all creatures are, more or less, denaturalized by confinement. I once saw a hen at sea, eating the egg which she had just dropt. The sight of the poor sea-sick poultry, in their miserable coops, is at all times exceedingly unpleasant: but I am not ashamed to say, that this seemed to me something shocking. They who have ever thought upon the mystery of incubation will understand the feeling.

182. Instinct.

In Egypt, where they hatch chicken by artificial heat, a hen which has been hatched in the natural way sells for double the price of those from the oven, because the latter will rarely sit upon their eggs. This fact, which is one of the most important upon the subject of instinct, is mentioned in a "Non-Military Journal," written during our campaign against the French in Egypt, and attributed to General

Doyle, who is now serving in Spain. It shows that by this interference with the course of nature, the chain of instinct is broken.

A drake, which had been hatched with a brood of chicken, was killed because it could not be kept from treading the hens. This is another fact, which, though it is partly explicable by other causes, is probably in a great degree to be traced to the same. I remember a singular instance of instinct, overpowered by example. A Turkey-polt, which had been hatched under a duck, and often stood trembling on the brink of the pond where its foster-brothers were enjoying themselves in the water, one day by a des perate effort of courage followed them in, and was drowned.

183. Adipocire.

The nature of this substance must always have been known since men

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