H.
[3] Blucher.
* * * * *
THE NATURALIST.
* * * * *
ERRORS IN NATURAL HISTORY.
(_From Chit-chat, in the Magazine of Natural History, by Dovaston and
Von Osdat._)
_Dov._ Ray tells a humourous story, that, after the patiently exploring
commissioners, at the end of their long examinations, deliberately
confessed their utter ignorance to account for the Goodwin Sands, an old
man gravely asserted Tenterden steeple to be the cause.
_Von Os._ Tenterden steeple!
_Dov._ Ay; Tenterden steeple: for that those sands first appeared the
year it was erected.
_Von Os._ And the slightest interview with the mass of mankind, any
hour, will prove the race of Tenterden philosophers to be far from
extinct.
_Dov._ Particularly with regard to facts relative to natural history:
and this is the more lamentable, and perhaps the more surprising, when
we consider its unlimited adaptability to all capacities, ages, sexes,
and ranks; and, moreover, the absolute necessity of many parts of it to
their intellectual existence.
_Von Os._ There is in our village, a slater, very fond of keeping bees.
These useful insects, he says, at breeding-time sweat prodigiously; and
each lays four eggs at the bottom of each cell: soon after which, he has
observed the combs to become full of maggots, which must be carefully
destroyed by smoke! When any one of his numerous family is buried, as
the corpse passes out of the house, he carefully loosens every hive, and
lifts it up; otherwise, he says, the bees would all die!
_Dov.
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