had received on entering, I took the place of one of the pushers, and after a merry drive of about twenty minutes we again saw daylight, like a distant star, increasing in size till we reached the entrance of the mine. We here took off our spectre-clothes, and returned home in our usual appearance, and a merry party we were."

"ALL FOR THE BEST."

No one can have lived long in the world without having observed how frequently it happens that events which, at the time they happened, were the source of bitter disappointment, have, eventually proved very blessings to us; and that many of those things which have been most anxiously desired, but which it has pleased God to withhold from us, would have proved, if granted, the origin of endless evils. The recollection of such circumstances in our own individual case, while it renders us deeply grateful to Divine Providence for the past, should make us trust with perfect confidence to the same Infinite Wisdom for the future.

It would be difficult perhaps to find an anecdote bearing more strongly on what we have just observed, than one which is mentioned in the life of BERNARD GILPIN, that great and good man, whose pious labours in the counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland and York, at the period of the Reformation, procured for him the title by which he is still remembered in those parts, as "The Apostle of the North."-It appears that it was a frequent saying of his, when exposed to losses or troubles "Ah, well! God's will be done nothing happens which is not intended for our good: it is all for the best!"

Towards the close of Queen Mary's reign, BERNARD GILPIN was accused of heresy before the merciless Bishop Bonner: he was speedily apprehended, and he left his quiet home, nothing doubting," as he said, "but that it was all for the best," though he was well aware of the fate that might await him; for we find him giving directions to his steward "to provide him a long garment, that he might go the more comely to the stake," at which he would be burnt.

While on his way to London, by some accident he had a fall and broke his leg, which put a stop for some time to his journey. The persons in whose custody he was, took occasion thence maliciously to retort upon him his habitual remark. "What," said they, "is this all for the best ;—you say, Master, that nothing happens which is not for our good; think you your broken leg is so intended ?" -"Sirs, I make no question but it is," was the meek reply: and so in very truth it proved; for before he was able to travel, Queen Mary died, the persecution ceased, and he was restored to his liberty and friends.

ABBREVIATIONS AND SIGNS. ABBREVIATIONS and Signs, are generally used to express in small, that which is in itself large, or in short, that which is in itself long. In this way we have London on a pocket handkerchief, England on a bit of paper, or the whole surface of the earth and all the stars in the heavens, on the surface of two little globes, a foot or eighteen inches in diameter. So also we have the whole history of the world in a small book, which we can carry in our pocket; or the principal events in a table, which we can examine at a glance.

The words of language, to which we owe so much of our knowledge and enjoyment, are nothing but signs and abbreviations. It would take years to know and months to tell, in detail, all that we mean by the short word "man;" and yet we understand it whenever we hear it spoken or see it written.

just as letters are the alphabets of languages; and it is just as impossible for any one to know the science without first knowing its alphabet, as it is for any one to be able to read a book without knowing the A, B, C. Learning the A, B, C, is knowing the sound of the letters,—that is, the connexion or relation between words that are heard and words that are only seen. There is no natural relation between seeing and hearing; and therefore the A, B, C, is arbitrary, or just what they who use it choose to make it, consequently every body must be taught it.

It is nearly the same with what may be called the "'alphabets" of all the sciences; and in science, as well as in language, we very soon learn to read and understand, when we once know our A, B, C, or letters. The learning of their letters being the first and humblest lesson of children at school, persons who are farther advanced in life think it beneath them to learn alphabets; and, from that silly prejudice, they remain ignorant of the sciences to which those alphabets are the keys.

Yet those alphabets are the most wonderful of human contrivances. The steam engine and gas light are mere trifles compared with the A, B, C. The figures 1, 2, 3, &c. which are the alphabet of numbers, are very curious; and enable us to do that in so many seconds, which, if we had no such contrivance, we could not do in as many centuries. The distance of the sun from the earth is about 190 millions of half miles, and half a mile is about a thousand paces; five miles an hour is fast walking, and the paces then are as fast as one can count distinctly. At that rate, though the first man had begun the journey, or the counting, at the moment of his creation, and he and his posterity continued at it twelve hours every day, it would have been more than 200 years after the birth of Christ before they had finished the task. By means of the alphabet of numbers, any body can do it as fast as three O's can be written. The half miles are 190,000,000; the paces in half a mile 1000: we have only to add three 0's to the first of these, and we have the whole number of paces,190,000,000,000.

The alphabet of numbers does not, however, express the relations of numbers, and so we must have other signs for these; and, as the figures which stand for the names of numbers are different from the words, or names, which are the names of things, there are also different signs for the principal relations of numbers. But as the value of every thing that can be valued is reckoned in numbers, the relations of numbers are of very general use; and as the signs of those relations are the shortest means of expressing them, every body should be acquainted with them.

These signs are sometimes called " Algebraical" signs, and the name is far from being an improper one. "Al" means "the" and "jabr" means "to consolidate," or bring together into little space, so that the whole may be seen at once; and thus "Algebra" means "the expressing of the greatest meaning by the fewest signs." Those signs are not explained, except in the books of science, which ordinary readers are not in the habit of consulting; but they are sometimes used in other books; and as, when so used they are puzzles to many people, simple explanations of them may be useful, and these we shall give on future occasions.

Those signs are the Alphabets of the sciences,

severance.-JOHNSON.

SURE am I that the discovery of a truth formerly unknown doth rather convince man of ignorance than nature of ignorance.-RALEIGH.

BOSCOBEL COTTAGE. BOSCOBEL Cottage is celebrated in English history as having been the first place of refuge in which king Charles II took shelter after his defeat at the battle of Worcester, 3rd. Sept. 1651. It is situated near the little town of Madeley, on the confines of Worcestershire and Shropshire, and was, at the time referred to, the residence of William Penderell, a forester or servant in husbandry to Mr. Giffard the owner of the surrounding domain. To the fidelity of this man, his wife, his mother and his four brothers, Richard, Humphry, John, and George Penderell, was the fugitive king indebted for some days of concealment and safety, when even the noble and gentle who parted from him chose to remain in voluntary ignorance of the exact place of his retreat" as they knew not what they might be forced to confess."

Boscobel Cottage.

Few palaces awake more pleasing recollections of human nature in our minds than does this lowly cottage. Its inhabitants were of the poorest among the poor, the humblest among the humble; death, on the one hand, was the certain punishment which attended their fidelity if discovered; while, on the other hand, riches, beyond any thing they could have contemplated, courted their acceptance, and might have been secured by one single treacherous word: yet did this virtuous band of brothers retain their fidelity untempted and their loyalty unshaken. In the immediate vicinity of this house stood the "ROYAL OAK," among the branches of which the king remained concealed while his pursuers actually passed round and under it the original tree was, after the Restoration, speedily destroyed by the zeal of the royalists to possess relics of their sovereign's hiding place, but another, raised from one of its acorns, is still flourishing. In the Nicobar Islands the natives build their vessels, make the sails and cordage, supply them with provisions and necessaries, and provide a cargo of arrack, vinegar, oil, coarse sugar, cocoa-nuts, cordage, black paint, and several inferior articles, for foreign markets, entirely from the cocoa-nut tree.-FORBES's Oriental Memoirs.

REMARKABLE FACTS.

A MILLION of Bank Notes placed one above another would form a pile 416 feet in height, which is much higher than St. Paul's, and more than double the height of the Monument. Supposing them to be spread out, they would extend over 250,000 square feet, a space equal to the area of Grosvenor Square, London.

The various combinations into which the twenty-four letters of the alphabet may be arranged, amount to 620,448,401, 733,239,439,360,000.

If a person were employed telling money, reckoning a hundred pieces a minute, and continuing at work ten hours each day, he would take nearly seventeen days to tell a million. A thousand men would take forty-five years to reckon a quadrillion.

DEATH BY BOILING.

IT is not generally known that malefactors were formerly boiled to death. Two instances of this terrible punishment occur in the reign of Henry VIII. and are thus recorded in Stowe's Chronicle:

1532. The fifth of April one Richard Rose, a Cook, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of divers persons to the number of sixteen, or more, at the Bishop of Rochester's Place; amongst the which Benet Curnine was one, and he intended to have poisoned the Bishop himself, but he eat no pottage that day, whereby he escaped: marry, the people that eat of them many of them dyed. 1543. The seventeenth of March, Margaret Davy, a Maid, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning three households that she had dwelled in.

poor

SECRET OF LIVING ALWAYS EASY. An Italian bishop having struggled through great difficulties without complaining, and met with much opposition in the discharge of his episcopal functions, without ever betraying the least impatience, an intimate friend of his, who highly admired those virtues which he conceived it impossible to imitate, one day asked the prelate if he could tell him the secret of being always easy. "Yes," replied the old man, "I can teach you my secret, and will do so very readily. It consists in nothing more than in making great use of my eyes." His friend begged him to explain." Most willingly," said the bishop. "In whatever state I am, I first of all look up to heaven, and remember that my principal business here is to get there; I then look down upon the earth, and call to mind the space I shall shortly occupy in it; I then look abroad into the world, and observe what multitudes there are who in all respects have more cause to be unhappy than myself. Thus I learn where true happiness is placed, where all our cares must end, and how very little reason I have to repine or complain." BISHOP KENN's well-known doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," &c. is a masterpiece at once of amplification and compression,-amplification on the burden, "Praise God," repeated in each line; compression, by exhibiting God as the object of praise in every view in which ings, yea, for all blessings, none coming from any other we can imagine praise due to him:-praise for all his blesssource; praise by every creature, specifically invoked "here below," and in "heaven above;" praise to Him in each of the characters wherein he has revealed himself in his word"Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Yet this comprehensive verse is sufficiently simple, that by it "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings praise might be perfected:" and it ap pears so easy, that one is tempted to think hundreds of the sort might be made without trouble. The reader has only to try, and he will be quickly undeceived, though the longer he tries, the more difficult he will find the task to be.MONTGOMERY.

Hereford
Hull

Lancashire and

Cheshire

Child. Wilson.

Bancks and Co. Manchester

Leeds ............Robinson.

Leicester..........Combe.
Liverpool .........
..Hughes.

Macclesfield ......Swinnerton.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Finlay & Charl

ton; Empson.

Nottingham .Wright

Oxford

Slatter.

Sheffield.

.Ridge.

Salisbury...

Shrewsbury

Brodie& Dowding .Eddowes.

Worcester ........Deighton.

C. RICHARDS, Printer, 100, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross.

THE above is a portrait of that extraordinary person, DUNS SCOTUS, who is said to have engaged to translate the whole of the Scriptures without tasting food, and to have expired in finishing the last chapter of the Revelation.

The tradition of Scotus's wonderful fasting is amusing from its absurdity; but a short sketch of his real history may not be uninteresting.

JOHN DUNS was born towards the end of the thirteenth century, at Dunstance, in the parish of Embleton near Alnwick, Northumberland. Both Scotland and Ireland, however, claimed the honour of having given birth to this learned doctor: from the former he received the name of SCOTUS, or Scot. When' a boy, he is said to have been educated in a convent of Franciscans, at Newcastle; and it is certain that he afterwards became a friar of that order.

In the year 1301, after becoming a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, he was elected professor of theology in the University; his great fame causing incredible

numbers to attend his lectures.

He afterwards resided at Paris, and died at Cologne of apoplexy, on the 8th November, 1308. One writer of his life asserts, that he was buried alive, because, on the removal of his bones, he appeared to have turned himself in his coffin.

In his day he was considered a prodigy of learning, and obtained the title of the Subtle Doctor. But his learning was only in what is called the Divinity of the Schoolmen, far removed from that sound and useful learning which enables the scholar to discover the truth, and to impart the knowledge of it to others. Among other extravagant praises heaped upon him by his admirers, it was said, "He was so consummate VOL. I.

a philosopher, that he could have been the inventor of philosophy if it had not before existed. His knowledge of all the mysteries of religion was so profound, that it was rather intuitive certainty than belief. He wrote so many books, that one man is hardly able to read them; and no one man is able to understand them. He would have written more had he composed with less accuracy. Such was our immortal Scotus, the most ingenious, acute, and subtile, of the sons of men."

The writings of this once eminent disputant are now forgotten; but his memory has been preserved by his extraordinary portrait, and the absurd story connected with his name.

KAPIOLANI,

A FEMALE CHRISTIAN CHIEF OF OWHYHEE.

THE name of Owhyhee (or Hawaii as it is now written) is probably familiar to most of our readers, as the scene of Capt. Cook's tragical end. It is the largest of a group of seven islands (known by the name of the Sandwich Islands) situated in the great Pacific Ocean, and which have probably, at some remote period of time, been raised from the bottom of the sea, by the force of fires confined under the surface of the earth; and struggling to make a vent for themselves. These fires are still so vigorously at work, that the island has been compared to a hollow cone, raised over a vast furnace: and some five and twenty or thirty years ago, there burst forth from the summit of the mountain Mouna Huararai a torrent of melted matter, (lava) which overwhelmed in its course several villages, destroyed numerous plantations and fish-ponds, and filled up the bay of Kiranea to the extent of twenty miles in length, forming an entirely new line of coast.

The inhabitants of the island, at that time idolaters, attributed this calamity to the anger of their deities, and especially of the goddess Peli, whom they believed to preside over the burning mountain, and whom, when she burst forth from her abode in streams of red-hot lava, they strived to appease by throwing hogs, and even living infants, into the liquid flame.

Kiranea, which is the name of this burning mountain, and the supposed residence of Peli, is the largest and most extraordinary volcanic crater* on the face of the globe. It is situated in the midst of a plain, fifteen or sixteen miles round, the whole surface of which, sunk from two to four hundred feet below its original level, appears rent into deep cracks, out of which vast quantities of flame, smoke, and vapour, are continually ascending: here and there a few beds of sulphur, and black pools of fresh water serve to increase the horrors of this dismal scene.

"After walking some distance," we quote the words of a person who visited it not long since, "After walking some distance over the sunken plain, which in several places sounded hollow under our feet, we Ascame at length to the edge of the great crater.

*A "crater," or cup, is the opening through which the firs issues from a "volcano" or burning mountain. 13

tonishment and awe for some moments rendered us silent, and we stood fixed to the spot like statues. Immediately before us, yawned an immense gulf in the form of a crescent, about two miles in length, nearly a mile in width, and apparently eight hundred feet deep. The bottom was covered with lava, and the south-west and northern parts of it were one vast flood of burning matter, rolling to and fro its waves of fire, and boiling up with terrific violence.

"Above fifty hillocks, from twenty to seventy feet high, and in shape resembling the chimneys of a glass house, rose either round the edge, or from the surface of the burning lake. From the summits of many of these hillocks, were constantly shooting forth clouds of grey smoke, or fountains of brilliant flame, and several of them, were at the same time vomiting from their mouths, streams of lava, which rolled in blazing torrents down their black and rugged sides, into the boiling mass below. The flood of melted metal was therefore kept in a constant state of agitation, while the lively flame which danced over its troubled surface, now tinged with sulphurous blue, now glowing with mineral red, cast a broad glare of dazzling light on the hillocks, whose soaring mouths shot up, at frequent intervals, with the report of cannon, large masses of melting lava, or red hot stones."

No one can wonder that these enormous volcanoes, from which they have so frequently suffered, should have inspired the natives of Owhyhee with terror and superstition; or that the worship of Peli, should have been continued even after Christianity had been adopted by many of the natives. That idolatrous worship is now no more it was the last and most powerful that remained; and its abolition was at length effected by one of the greatest acts of moral courage, which has perhaps ever been performed. The king, with the assistance of all his chiefs, and all the endeavours of the missionaries strove, and strove in vain, to put down the worship of Peli; nothing it seemed, was ever to be able to expel the belief that the goddess, when offended, visited the children of men with thunder and lightning, and earthquakes, and streams of liquid fire, the instruments of her mighty power and vengeance.

What the united efforts, however, of kings and chiefs and missionaries failed to accomplish, has been brought about by the heroic act of one woman!

:

Kapiolani, a female chief of the highest rank, had recently embraced Christianity: and, desirous of propagating it, and of undeceiving the natives as to their false gods, she resolved to climb the mountain, descend into the crater, and, by thus braving the gods of fire in their very home, convince the inhabitants of the island that Jehovah is the one true God, and that Peli existed only in the fancy of her weak adorers. Thus determined, and accompanied by a missionary, she, with part of her family and a crowd of followers, ascended the mountain. At the edge of the first precipice which bounds the sunken plain, many of her companions lost courage and turned back at the second, the rest earnestly entreated her to desist from her dangerous enterprize, and to forbear to tempt the gods of the fires. But she proceeded: and on the very brink of the crater caused a hut to be built for herself and her followers. Here she was assailed anew by their entreaties to return home, and their assurance that if she persisted in violating the houses of the goddess, she would draw on herself, and those with her, certain destruction. Her answer was noble :— "I will descend into the crater," said she, "and if I do not return safe, then continue to worship Peli; but if I come back unhurt, you must learn to adore the God who created and who can control these fires!"

She accordingly went down the steep and difficult

side of the crater, accompanied by some few, whom love or duty induced to follow her. Arrived at the bottom, she pushed a stick into the liquid lava, and stirred the ashes of the burning lake!

The charm of superstition was at once broken. Those who had expected to see the goddess, armed with flame and sulphurous smoke, burst forth and destroy the daring being who had thus braved her in her only sanctuary, were awe-struck when they saw the fire remain harmless, and the flames roll harmless, as though none were present. They acknowledged the greatness of the GOD of Kapiolani; and from that time few indeed have been the offerings, and little the reverence which has been paid to the fires of Peli !

THE COTTAGE.

WHERE is there a lovelier sight to be seen,
Than a cottage embosom'd in covert of green?
Where the rose and the woodbine embower the gate,
And health and contentment and loveliness wait!
And if in this home of the poor there be found
That goodness and love which sheds blessing around,
The beauty without, though so lovely, has been
Less fair than the beauty of spirit within.

If sickness or poverty enter, the peace
Which Jesus bequeath'd, will in sorrow increase;
And new strength to the faith, and new grace to the heart,
The sweet from the bitter, will sorrow impart.
More than halls of high splendour, a cottage like this
Is endow'd with a portion of heavenly bliss;
Though the low humble dwelling in secrecy lies,
There spirits of Christians grow ripe for the skies!
Homerton.
JAMES EDMESTON.

COTTAGERS' ALLOTMENTS. THE burthen of the poor-rates has forced the condition of the poor upon the attention even of the selfish and indolent; and, among a multitude of schemes, suggested or revived, for improving their lot, there is none which at present meets with more favour than that of garden allotments to the industrious poor. This will not surprise any one who has seen its cheerful and cheering operation. I am not now about to enter into a disquisition on its merits, and will only add, that its admirers must not expect too much from its adoption; neither must they look to it as alone sufficient for the renovation of our peasantry; still less can the rate payer wisely hope that even in purely agricultural parishes it can effect any thing approaching to an extinction of the poor-rate. The sooner such extravagant notions can be dissipated, the better; they can only lead to disappointment; but in judicious hands it may be safely looked to as one among other means of raising the spirit, increasing the comforts, employing the leisure, and rewarding the industry of the well-conducted and diligent poor, and so indirectly but certainly diminishing the amount of the poor-rate.

My object however now is to draw attention-and I hope not too late to a statute recently passed on this subject, with the provisions of which it is desirable for parish authorities and the poor to be made acquainted-I mean the 42d of 2d of Will. 4, intituled, "An Act to authorize (in parishes inclosed under any Act of Parliament) the letting of the Poor Allotments in small portions to industrious Cottagers." This statute professes to contemplate the case where, an enclosure having taken place, an allotment has been set apart for the poor, chiefly with a view to their winter supply of fuel; and some of its provisions are applicable only to such a case; but by the last section its general enactments are extended to every case in which land shall in any parish "be found appropri

:

In the first week in September, a vestry, with ten days' notice, may be holden, at which the trustees of such allotments may attend and vote, if they think proper at this Vestry any industrious cottager of good character, being a day-labourer or journeyman, legally settled in the parish, and dwelling within or near its bounds, may apply to take not less than a quarter, nor more than the whole of an acre of such land, as a tenant from year to year, from the Michaelmas following. The vestry must take into consideration his character and circumstances, and either reject the application, or make an order in his favour, which will be to all intents and purposes a sufficient authority for him to enter and occupy at the time fixed. The rent must be such as lands of the same quality are usually let for in the parish, and payable in one gross sum at the end of the year, to the churchwardens and overseers of the poor in behalf of the vestry; and the occupier is held bound to cultivate the land in such a manner "as shall preserve it in a due state of fertility."

There are very proper provisions, to be embodied as I understand, in the order of vestry, for no lease or agreement of any kind seems necessary: but by sections 5 and 6, means are provided for turning the tenant out of possession at a week's notice, if at the end of any one year the rent shall be four weeks in arrear, or the land in the opinion of the vestry, shall not have been duly cultivated; and, by sect. 7, the arrears of rent in such case may be recovered by a summary application to two justices of the peace, who may levy the same by distress upon the party's goods. Where the land so let has been a fuel allotment, the rent is to be applied by the vestry in the purchase of fuel, to be distributed in the winter to the settled poor of the parish, resident in or near it; and by analogy I conceive that in other cases the rent must be applied for the general benefit of those for whom the land itself was originally destined.

No habitations are to be erected on any portion of the land so demised; and if the land lies at an inconvenient distance from the residences of the cottagers of the parish, the vestry may let it, and hire other land more favourably situated for the purposes of the act in lieu thereof.

These are the provisions of the statute, conceived, I think, in a wise and benevolent spirit, though they will admit of amendments in another session of parliament, to which at a fitting time I may perhaps direct the attention of the readers of the Magazine.

No room is left for them now, and I regret that I myself was not sooner aware of the existence of the statute; my remarks, however, may, even now, be important to those who have prepared themselves to act upon it immediately; and where that is not the case, may suggest useful hints to individuals or parishes in which the allotment system is already in operation without the aid of the legislature. Weymouth.

J. T. C.

WE all talk of the ass as the stupidest of the browsers of the field; yet if any one shuts up a donkey in the same inclosure with half a dozen horses of the finest blood, and the party escape, it is infallibly the poor donkey that has led the way. It is he alone that penetrates the secret of the bolt and latch. Often have we stood at the other side of a hedge, contemplating a whole troop of blood-mares and their offspring, patiently waiting, while the donkey was snuffing over a piece of work to which all but he felt themselves incompetent."-Quart.

Review.

CLIMATE.

THE discontented frequently complain of our uncertain climate, (and it is doubtless trying to some constitutions) but let them read the accounts of other countries, and say which is to be preferred.

'The rains in the West Indies are by no means the things they are with us. Our heaviest rains are but dews comparatively. They are floods of water poured from the clouds, with a prodigious impetuosity; the rivers rise in a moment; new rivers and lakes are formed; and in a short time all the low country is under water." The rains make the only distinction of seasons in the West Indies; the trees are green the whole year round; they have no cold, no frosts, no snows-and but rarely some hail; the storms of hail, however, when they do happen, are very violent and the hailstones very great and heavy." It is in the rainy seasons (principally in August, more rarely in July and September) that they are assaulted by hurricanes; the most terrible calamity to which they are subjected from the climate. This destroys at a stroke the labours of many years, and prostrates the most exalted hopes of the planter, and often just at the moment when he thinks himself out of the reach of fortune. It is a hidden and violent storm of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, attended with a furious swelling of the seas, and sometimes an earthquake ; in short, every circumstance which the elements can assemble, that is terrible and destructive. Firstthey see, as a prelude to the ensuing havock, whole fields of sugar-canes whirled into the air, and scattered over the face of the country. The strongest trees of the forest are torn up by the roots, and driven about like stubble. Their windmills are swept away in a moment; their works, fixtures, coppers, &c. wrenched up and battered to pieces; their houses are no protection, the roofs are torn off at one blast; whilst the river, which in an hour rises five feet, rushes in upon them with irresistible force."—Eurovean Settlements. He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.-Matt. 111. 12. The custom of loosing the sandals from off the feet of an Eastern worshipper, was ancient and indispensable. It is also commonly observed in visits to great men. The sandals or slippers are pulled off at the door, and either left there, or given to a servant to bear. The person to bear them, means an inferior domestic, or attendant upon a man of high rank, to take care of, and to return them to him again. This was the work of servants thought too mean for a scholar or disciple to do. The Jews the Jews; and it was reckoned so servile, that it was among say, "All services which a servant does for a master, a disciple does for his master, except unloosing his shoes." John thought it was too great an honour for him to do that for Christ, which was thought too mean for a disciple to do for a wise man.—BURDER.

THE BLACK OR GREAT OSTRICH. THIS species of Ostrich stands so very high as to measure from seven to nine feet from the top of the head to the ground: from the back, however, it is seldom more than three or four feet, the rest of its height being made up by its extremely long neck. The head is small, and, as well as the greater part of the neck, is covered only with a few scattered hairs. The feathers of the body are black and loose; those of the wings and tail are of a snowy white, waved and long, having here and there a tip of black. The wings are furnished with spurs: the thighs are naked; and the feet strong, and of a gray-brown colour.

The sandy and burning deserts of Africa and Asia are the only native residences of the Black Ostriches. Here they are seen in flocks so large as sometimes to have been mistaken for distant cavalry.

There are many circumstances in the form and habits