rect influence of white men has been with- | derstood how to manage a steam-engine, drawn? We have pointed out that in and could be left alone in charge of it. Africa Mahommedanism has been far He was indeed often pointed to as an more successful than Christianity in rais- example of the absurdity of the race prejuing the social status of the negro, simply dice which led white men to look down because it has not attempted too much upon people capable of developing such and has contrived to inspire the black man ability with a little instruction. It seemed with a sense of self-respect. Against ex- impossible that this smart lad would amples like this, such instances as Hayti, under any circumstances revert to his the Southern States of America, the West original habits, or that he could be inIndia Islands, together with the Sandwich duced to strip off his clothing, paint himIslands, New Zealand and Tonga, have self black and red, and take part in the been adduced. It might be urged that picturesque but indecent dances of his neither the Sandwich Islanders, the Mao- native island. Yet it is the fact that this ris, nor the Tongans are negroes, but of a man, who would have been paraded as a much higher type. Even in these cases, prize pupil at any mission station on the however, the veneer of civilization is very globe, no sooner landed on the island lightly laid on. At any period of great whence he came than he threw up all his excitement the natives return to their old civilization and within a few hours aphabits. Thus the Maoris, when differ- peared in painted nakedness, ready to ences have arisen between themselves foot it with the best of them. It was and the colonists, have speedily thrown observed, too, that he showed all respect off the civilized notions they were sup for the drunken old savage his chief, posed to have imbibed; and the Sandwich though physically as well as intellectually Islanders still hanker after the old fetish his superior. That his fellows who went rites abandoned in favor of a higher cere- with him should go off in the same way monial. In Jamaica this tendency to re- was of course not so strange, for they had vert to savagery is still more marked and lived the ordinary plantation life. It is more extraordinary. Most of the black just the same with the women. Girls inhabitants have been under the influence who have attended for years upon Euroof Christianity and civilization for two or peans with the most scrupulous and even three generations; and it might be sup- touching fidelity, becoming as much a posed, therefore, that the negroes were portion of civilized society as any ordithoroughly leavened with the teaching of nary Englishwoman of somewhat neg. their instructors. Not so. Some, no lected education, have reverted as speedily doubt, half-breeds and full-blooded ne- as their male companions to their old groes alike, have completely overcome the habits; and have even distinguished themhereditary instincts of their race, and dis. selves above the rest by their shameless play an ability which is worthy of sincere conduct, as if taking revenge for years of respect. But the great mass of the en- restraint. Any one who has seen much franchised negroes, where they are left to of natives could give many instances of their own devices, are drifting back to this; and missionaries, if they would tell savagery, with its concomitant devotion the truth, would say that they never feel to Obi. altogether sure that their converts will not some day break out again. This may be observed in individual cases as well as in the general mass. Of these very natives whose case is now at tracting so much attention, it is safe to say that nine-tenths of them forget at once all they have learned during the six or seven or more years' intercourse with the white men, going back delighted to their savage state; and that the remaining tenth only hold out a trifle longer. There was a boy, kidnapped young from one of the islands in the New Hebrides, who had been a favorite with a planter's family; and, being in the midst of a civilized community, had become quite civilized, and to all appearance religious. What was still more to the purpose, he thoroughly un Certain it is that any argument based upon the service done to the "inferior races by temporary enslavement and civilization has a very unsound foundation. So long as the pressure is maintained, so long perhaps will they improve; but remove this, and the old instincts revive - often with increased violence. This, after all, is only what might be expected. History gives no example of the sudden elevation of a race from a lower to a higher level at a bound; wherever the attempt has been made, the savages experimented upon have either died out or have gone back to the point from which they started. From All The Year Round. NATURE IN LONDON. THE suburbs of London are remarkable for the variety of insect and animal life that exist within their indefinite borders. In spite of the bird catchers, small birds come in flocks, and song-birds settle among the thickets. "There are more birds round about London," writes the author of "The Gamekeeper at Home," "than in all the woodlands I used to ramble through." No farther off than Wimbledon Common, there are plenty of birds' nests to be found, and it is needless to add, plenty of boys to find them, in spite of the vigilance of their guardians. At Barn Elms, encompassed by villas and new streets, the songs of birds can still be heard in the springtime among the elms that have come down from Queen Elizabeth's time-birds as well as trees, no doubt, in unbroken descent. Sometimes, too, strange visitants from the wilder country beyond find their way into London. Not long ago a hare was seen to cross Brook Green - the Brook Green of Punch's volunteer, now a public parklet, with red Queen Anne houses rising about ita hare that went loping leisurely along one dewy morning, and turned into the Kensington Road. Wild fowl, too, have been seen circling about the Albert Docks, as if some tradition among the birds of the air preserved the memory of the marshy pools that once existed there. Still, all this is beyond the scope of our present article, which is intended to concern itself about nature in its city form that nature which has lost all trace of its country liberty, and has taken up its freedom of the city, with the sober livery that suits the atmosphere of town. Nor do we propose to treat of trained and educated nature of the small creatures in fur and feathers which help their owners by their tricks to pick up a precarious living. The depressed-looking parroquet, for instance, which at the instance of some East End Fornarina in gilt earrings and necklace, picks out the card of destiny for the passer-by; or the wandering exhibition on a stage like a butler's tray, where canaries are the performers, firing off pistols, driving coaches, or dancing the tight rope, while two sleepy-looking cats watch the proceedings without any show of interest, awaiting their turn for a set to with the gloves. It is this latter entertainment, by the way, that seems to have replaced the old "happy family," which proved too tame and undramatic for the present age, and has probably been broken up and scattered about like other happy families of more human interest. For these wandering performers are not peculiar to London. As a matter of convenience they may winter in London, but the summer finds them scattered about at places of popular resort. But the nature which excites our curiosity is the actual fauna of London - the sparrows that haunt its squares and gardens, the pigeons which hover about its public buildings; even the rats and mice, and other small deer that riot among its wharves and granaries. The ways of dogs, too, in London are worth a little study. That poodle, for instance, to be met with about the streets in the neighborhood of Leicester Square, which roams about quite composedly, and never loses its presence of mind even at the most crowded crossing; and yet seems always to have something in the way of business to attend to. There is another dog which has a mission in the world to be met with on Waterloo Pier, a smart little fox-terrier, whose one absorbing vocation is neither rats nor cats, both unattainable, probably, on a steamboat pier, but which finds a far more absorbing occupation in watching for all kinds of flotsam or wreckage that the tide may carry past. When he sees anything of importance coming within reach, his excitement is boundless, and his agitated barks bring out the piermaster with a boathook, who fishes out the log, or whatever else it may be. "Jumbo" is then rewarded with the opportunity of giving his prize one vindictive shake, and then, amply satisfied, returns to his vigilant outlook upon the turbid tide. Yet while the regular London dog can make himself at home in the streets, and find honorable employment therein, the country or even suburban dog becomes quite lost and bewildered in the general turmoil. Astounded by the number and variety of the human swarm about him, he fails to recognize his master's form, or to hear his voice and whistle in the general confusion, and a lost dog he is likely to become, unless collared and led along. Once we landed at St. Katharine's Wharf with a little French dog accustomed to a country life and to bark at carts, horses, or anything else that might be coming or going. On Tower Hill he was as gay as you please, barking merrily at the early cart from Billingsgate, at the guardsman doing sentry-go before the Mint; but when he came in sight of the phalanx of vehicles in Great Tower Street, he shrank | that the Home at Battersea takes in cats back abashed and confounded. He saw and boards them on reasonable terms. the hopelessness of barking at them all, and seemed to feel that the delight of life was spoiled by too abundant opportunity. But the lot of the lost dog in London is no longer a hopeless one. Sooner or later he is pretty sure to fall into the hands of the police, to be conducted carefully to the Dogs' Home, where, if his master has taken the trouble to look for him, a joyful meeting may be expected. And the same charitable provision has been proposed and partly carried out for cats. In striking contrast to the noisy, barking, agitated crew on one side of the Home is the dignified quietude of poor pussy's seclusion. There are friendly cats who rub themselves against the wire netting and ask to be stroked, and sorrowful cats who sit silently by their untouched saucers of milk, and refuse to be comforted. But cats soon accustom themselves to new quarters, especially when they can't get out, and the general feeling among them is of contented resignation to the force of circumstances. Cats, however, do not often get lost on their own account. Except in early kit tenhood they rarely go far astray, and they know the airy paths among the slates and chimney-pots even better than their owners do the numbered and labelled streets below. When a cat is lost generally some man is at the bottom of the mystery. In the country the gamekeeper is mostly the culprit; in London, apart from those prowling ruffians who make a market of poor pussy's skin, the pigeon fancier is chiefly to be feared. A popular manual on the subject of pigeons airily gives directions for making a cat-trap. It is to be baited with a pigeon's head, and when the cat is caught it can be dropped into a bag, and the bag - but we will draw a veil over pussy's fate; the subject is too harrowing for a true lover of cats. And yet there are many stray cats about London homeless cats who may gradually starve to death if not taken in by the charitable. It is not the cat which has abandoned its home, but the home itself that is shut up and abandoned probably, and thus the animal of all others the most home-loving is left to the miseries of slow starvation, which must be aggravated by the mocking cry of the cats'-meat man, once a signal of delight. Many people, too, when they leave town for their summer holiday, shut up their houses and leave poor puss to the mercy of the streets. There is no longer an excuse for this, now To a starving cat there must be something very aggravating in the bearing of the London sparrows. The sparrow's attitude is one of assured indifference; he hops jauntily about, almost within reach of Grimalkin's claws. Almost, but not quite. On the slightest movement on the part of the cat, the sparrow is away with a derisive twitter. Indeed, most cats of experience have given up the sparrow as a bad job, and take no notice of his vagaries. And it is rarely you see a fullgrown sparrow fall into trouble, though as spring advances and the nestlings begin to leave the nest and flutter about, the cats take their toll of the weakest and least active. The wonder is that the sparrows are allowed to build their nests and rear their young in peace. But that they do so is quite evident from the number of young sparrows that appear every season, al though it is rarely that one comes upon a house-sparrow's nest. Lucky are those birds who get permanent quarters within some roomy public building, such as Westminster Abbey, where there is generally a colony to be found, or St. Paul's, where their twitterings resound pleasantly in the huge dome. But while the sparrow within is a more or less unauthorized intruder, the colonies of pigeons which have established themselves outside, might, as far as ancient title is concerned, seem to have rights of possession more firmly founded than our own. From all antiquity, pigeons have hovered about the great buildings of great cities, and their cooings and flutterings have resounded in the Acropolis and the Capitol, as now in the quadrangle of Somerset House or about the façade of the British Museum. Seen in the broken light of a fine spring day, with massive clouds showing against the dusky blue, the broad frieze of the Museum portico is all alive with pigeons, which strut about the broad ledges or flut ter in and out of the hollows and about the limbs of the sculptured figures; spreading out their tail feathers, bowing and scraping, and ruffling up their iridescent necks in happy indifference to the world below; to the sight-seers who are saunter. ing up the broad steps, to the readers and students, who pass in and out with faces more or less lined and careworn. The same scene is going on as far as the pigeons are concerned, where executors, with wills under their arms, are making their way to the probate offices, or sus picious relatives, unblessed with legacies, are going to search for themselves to see what that will of Uncle John's actually did amount to, in the stony quadrangle of Somerset House, that is, where once grew the lime grove planted by Queen Henrietta's father confessor. Equally preoccupied, too, are the doves that flutter about the feet of her Majesty's faithful Commons, and build among the pinnacles of the great palace of Westminster. From Chambers' Journal. BEE AND ANT PHENOMENA. VERY important and highly interesting discoveries have been lately made on this subject, which enable us easily to account for hitherto unexplained phenomena in bee life. It is well known that the honey of our honey-bees when mixed with tincture of litmus acquires an unmistakable red tint, a fact no doubt owing to the subtilized formic acid it contains; the The official pigeons, as these birds may presence of which acid likewise imparts be called, which devote themselves to the to the raw honey its power of keeping service of the crown, are very much of a for a considerable length of time. Honey feather; their plumage sombre and uni- which has been clarified by means of water form, throwing back, as the dog-fancier and exposure to heat the so-called would say, to the original "blue-rock" sirup of honey-spoils more easily than pigeon, the ancestor of all the tribe. Re- the ordinary kind, because the formic acid cruits from outside occasionally join the ranks, admitted by competitive examina. tion, probably a stray carrier, perhaps, that has lost its way, or a widowed dove from some neighboring cote. There was a brown and white pigeon, the other day, on the Museum grass, which seemed to have found domestic joy among the bluerocks, and its progeny will show distinct markings for a while, which will disappear in the course of a few generations — that is, if its progeny are allowed to survive for one has heard dark rumors on that subject apropos of the fact that these civilservice pigeons, although they certainly multiply, do not increase to any appreciable extent. As far as can be learnt, nobody feeds these pigeons. They pick up a living about cab-stands, and share in crumbs and broken victuals with the sparrows. An interesting incident in pigeon annals was the dynamite explosion at Westminster, in consequence of which the inner quadrangle was closed to cabs, and there were no more pickings to be had from that quarter. But in this emergency it is pleasant to add that the birds found a friend in Inspector Denning, who caused daily rations to be issued till the opening of Parliament brought cabs and horses to the rescue. We may hope that in time other birds will become denizens of the gardens and open spaces that are now being provided for public use. When the trees on the Embankment attain a fair size, there seems no reason why birds should not build amongst their branches - that is, if the ever-destructive London rough can be eventually neutralized. And to hear the wild wood-note of some song-bird in passing along the Strand would be an experience worth living for. in it has in a great measure been expelled. The honey of very fierce tribes of bees has a peculiarly acrid taste and pungent smell; this is due to the excess of formic acid contained in such honey. Till lately, complete ignorance prevailed as to the manner in which this so essential component of honey, formic acid, found its way into the substance secreted from the stomach or honey-bag of the busy workers; recent discoveries have, however, enlightened us on this point. These show us that the sting serves the bee not only as a means of defence, and sometimes of offence, but possesses likewise the almost more important power of infusing into the stored-up honey an antiseptic substance, not subject to fermentation. It has been lately observed that bees in hives, even when left undisturbed, from time to time rub off against the honeycomb, from the point of their sting, a tiny drop of bee poison; in other words, formic acid. This excellent preservative is thus little by little introduced into the honey. The more irritable and vicious the bees are, the greater the quantity of formic acid conveyed into the honey by them; a sufficient admixture of which is essential to the production of good honey. The praise, therefore, that has been so often lavished by adepts in such things on that indolent member of the bee tribe, the Ligurian bee, which hardly ever stings, is in point of fact misplaced. The observation just made above will explain, too, why the stingless honey-bee of South America collects but little honey; for it is notorious that when trees have been felled which have been inhabited by the stingless melipone, but little honey has been found in them. And indeed, what inducement have the bees to store up honey that will not keep, since it contains no formic acid? Of the eighteen different kinds of north- | destroys the preservative power of the Brazilian honey-bees known to the nat- formic acid; hence this drying process. uralist, only three possess a sting. We see, then, that the winter provision of honey for the bees, and the store of grain which serves as food for the ants, are preserved by means of one and the same fluid - namely, formic acid. The use of formic acid as a means of preserv ing fruit, and the like, was first suggested by Feierabend in the year 1877. From Longman's Magazine. THE MATCHMAKER'S EUCLID. Introduction. A very striking phenomenon in the habits of a certain species of ant is now amply accounted for. There exist, as is well known, various tribes of grain-collecting ants. The seeds of grasses and other plants remain stored up by them, often for years in their little granaries, without germinating. In India there is a very small red ant which drags into its cells grains of wheat and oats. But the creatures are so tiny, that, with their utmost efforts, it takes from eight to ten of them to carry off even one single grain. They move along in two separate rows, over smooth or rough ground, as the case THE art of match-making and eldest-son may be, and even up and down stairs, in hunting having been long since reduced steady regular progression. They have to a science by the mammas of fashion. often to traverse more than a thousand able life, it has been thought desirable to metres to carry their booty into the com- embody the same in writing for the benmon storehouse. The celebrated natural- efit of posterity; and in accomplishing ist Moggridge repeatedly observed that this task the method of Euclid has been when the ants were prevented from reach followed, both as one which will be uniing their granaries, the seeds in the grana-versally understood, and as showing more ries began to sprout. The same thing happened in storehouses that had been abandoned by them. We must infer, then, that ants possess the means of suspending or arresting the action of germination without destroying or impairing the actual vitality of the grain, or without impairing the vital principle that lies latent in the grain. The famous English scientist, Sir John Lubbock, in his work entitled "Ants, Bees, and Wasps," relates these and similar facts, and adds that it was not yet known how the ants prevented their provision of grain from sprouting. But now it has been proved that this is due simply to the preservative power of the formic acid, the effect of which is so powerful that it can either arrest the process of germination, or destroy it altogether in the seed. We will further mention that there exists among us a kind of ant that lives on seeds and stores them up. This is our Lasius niger, which, according to the statement made by Wittmack at the meeting of amateur naturalists at Berlin, carries seeds of violets, and likewise of ground ivy (Veronica hedæræfolia), into its cells. In his description of an Indian ant (Pheidole providens), Sykes relates that the above-mentioned kind collects large stores of grass-seeds. He notices likewise that after a monsoon storm, the ants bring their stores of grain out of their granaries, in order to dry them. It seems, therefore, that excessive moisture clearly than any other the connection between the successive steps of the science. Definitions. I. An undesirable partner is one who has no town house, and whose income has no magnitude. 2. A doubtful partner is title without wealth. 3. 4. 5. The extremities of a ball-room are the best to flirt in. A bad business is the plain inclination of two young people to one another, who meet together, but are not in the same circles. When one fair maiden "sits on " another fair maiden (for "outrageous flirting") so as to make the adja. cent company notice her, each of the listeners will call it jealousy, and the fair maiden who sits on the other fair maiden will be called "too particular" by them. 6. An obtuse angler is one who does not hook an eldest son. |