them of danger, should any bird of prey be sailing | reer of song, it is impossible to stand by uninterabove, by a fourth calls them away to another place, ested. He whistles for the dog-Cæsar starts up, or leads them home, should they have strayed to a wags his tail, and runs to meet his master; he distance. Nor are these various calls known in- squeaks out like a hurt chicken-and the hen hurstinctively, as is generally believed, by the young ries about with hanging wings and bristling feathbrood. We have watched the habits of the barn-ers, clucking to protect her injured brood. The fowl with the closest scrutiny, and are convinced barking of the dog, the mewing of the cat, the that a knowledge of the mother's notes is, to the creaking of a passing wheelbarrow, follow with young, a process of acquirement; in the same great truth and rapidity. He repeats the tune manner as a human child quickly, but nevertheless taught him by his master, though of considerable by degrees, learns to comprehend tones of affec- length, fully and faithfully. He runs over the tion, doting, chiding, and the like. The knowl- quiverings of the canary, and the clear whistlings edge of the lower animals is in almost every in- of the Virginian nightingale or redbird, with such stance acquired; a process necessarily more rapid superior execution and effect, that the mortified in them than in man, as they much sooner reach songsters feel their own inferiority, and become the limit of their growth and perfection. Animal altogether silent, while he seems to triumph in language is most perfect and varied among such their defeat by redoubling his exertions." animals as are gregarious in their habits. Let the most ignorant of natural history attend for a few days to the habits of a flock of birds, herd of oxen, horses, deer, elephants, or the like, and he will find that they make use of a variety of sounds often to-opment of the vocal powers. A young canary tally different from each other. Friendly recognition, hatred, fear, mirth, satisfaction, the discovery of food, hunger, and so on, are expressed each by a peculiar note, which is distinctly and instantly comprehended by the whole flock. And as among men, when simple sounds are insufficient, so among animals gesticulation is made use of to assist the comprehension and deepen the impression.

As there is thus an evident capability of modification, so there must, to a certain degree, be improvement or deterioration, as surrounding circumstances are favorable or unfavorable to the develbrought up in the same room with a goldfinch and linnet, if he does not slavishly adopt the notes of either, will often be found to add them to his own natural music. The natural voice of the dog, so far as that can be ascertained from wild species of the family, is more a yelp and snarl than a bark; and yet what is more full and sonorous than the voice of the Newfoundland or mastiff? The wild If, then, animals are really in possession of a horse-depending so much as it does upon the sovocal language, it may be asked, is that language ciety of its kind-acquires the nicest modulations capable of any modification, improvement, or dete- of neighing, so as to express pleasure, fear, recogrioration; and have we any evidence to that effect? nition, the discovery of pasture, and so forth; "That animal language admits of extensive modifi- while the labored hack has scarcely, if at all, the cation, we have ample proof in the history of cage command of its vocal organs. The voice of aniand singing-birds. The natural note of the canary mals is just as evidently strengthened and inis clear, loud, and rather harsh; by careful train-creased in variety of tone by practice, as is that ing, and breeding from approved specimens, that of the human singer or orator, and thus becomes note can be rendered clear, full, and mellow as capable of expressing a wider range of ideas. Inthat of the finest instrument. We have farther deed, it is certain that, if animals are placed in sitproof of such modification, in the fact of a young uations where the use of their language is not recanary being made to imitate the notes of the lin- quired, they will in a short time lose the faculty net or goldfinch, just as either of these may be of speech altogether. Thus, on the coral island taught the song of the canary. The starling and of Juan de Nova, where dogs have been left from blackbird may be trained to forsake their wood-time to time, and where, finding abundance of notes wild, and to imitate the human whistle to food, they have multiplied prodigiously, it is asperfection in many of our national melodies. Nay, serted that the breed have entirely lost the faculty the parrot, starling, raven, and even the canary, of barking. We knew an instance of a young camay be taught to articulate certain words and nary, just bursting into song, which was rendered phrases with more precision and emphasis than permanently dumb by being shut up in a darkened the tyros of the elocutionist. Nor is artificial chamber, and by occasionally having a cloth training always necessary to accomplish such thrown over its cage, that its notes might not dismodification; for we have the gay and lively turb an invalid. This treatment was continued mocking-bird of America producing, of his own for several months; and so effectually did it defree-will, almost every modulation, from the clear stroy the clear, brilliant notes of the youngster, mellow tones of the wood-thrush, to the savage that he was never afterwards known to utter a scream of the bald eagle. "While thus exerting note beyond a simple "tweet, tweet" of alarm. 'himself," says Wilson, 66 a person destitute of sight As the human speech is affected by disease and would suppose that the whole feathered tribes had old age, so likewise is that of the lower animals. assembled together on a trial of skill, each striving The husky, paralytic voice of the old shepherdto produce his utmost effect, so perfect are his im- dog, is a very different thing from the full-toned itations. 'He many times deceives the sportsman, bark of his athletic years; formerly, its modulaand sends him in search of birds that perhaps are tions could give expression to joy, fear, anger, renot within miles of him, but whose notes he ex-proach, and the like; now, its monotony is destiactly imitates even birds themselves are frequent-tute of all meaning. We were once in possession ly imposed on by this admirable mimic, and are of a starling, which we had taught to utter a numdecoyed by the fancied call of their mates, or dive ber of phrases, and to whistle in perfection a couple with precipitation into the depth of thickets at the scream of what they suppose to be the sparrowhawk. The mocking-bird loses little of the power and energy of his song by confinement. In his domesticated state, when he commences his ca

of Scottish melodies. After a severe moulting attack, not only was his power of voice destroyed, but his memory apparently so much affected, that phrases and melodies were ever after jumbled incoherently together; much like the chattering of

Ah! for the dear delight,
The music of thy sight,

an old man in his dotage, or like those individuals | Beauty that shrinks from every gaze but one: who, after severe fevers, forget some of the languages they have acquired, or make themselves intelligible through a new jargon of English, I yield the day, the lonely day, and live for night French, and Latin phrases.

alone.

II.

The love that is our solace may be sought;

And voices break the spell with sorrow fraught;
Better that single, silent star above us,

And still around us that subduing hush,
As of some brooding wing, ordained to love us,
That spells the troubled soul and soothes its
gush;

Griefs

But it may be asked-if the lower animals thus
make use of a vocal language, are those to whom It is no grief that, in the night hour only,
it is addressed at all times capable of interpreting
its meaning? The well-known habits of gregari-Day mocks the soul that is in rapture lonely,
ous animals, in our opinion, ought to answer this
question. Every individual in a herd of wild hor-
ses or deer, most perfectly understands every ges-
ture and sound of the watch or leader, which is
stationed for the general safety. Nor is such un-
derstanding altogether instinctive, but a process
of training and tuition quite analogous to what
takes place in our own case. Farther, the speech,
if we may so call it, of one animal is not only un-
derstood by the animals of its own class, but in a
great measure by the other animals that are in the
habit of frequenting the same localities. Thus
the chaffinch, which discovers the sparrow-hawk
sailing above, instantly utters a note of alarm-a
note known not only to other chaffinches, but un-
derstood and acted upon by all others of the feath-
ered race within hearing. The suspension of
every song, the rustling into the thicket beneath,
the sly cowering into the first recess, or the clam-
or of impotent rage, abundantly attests how well
they have interpreted the original note of alarm.
But if all other evidence were wanting of the ca-
pacity of the lower animals to interpret other voi-
ces than their own, the fact that many of them
learn to interpret human words, and to distinguish
human voices, would be sufficient attestation.
Thus the young horse taken from the hills, learns in
a few months to discriminate the words spoken to
him by his driver; and so do the ox, the dog, and
other domesticated animals. This comprehension
of vocal sounds evidently implies a sense of lan-
guage a sense that, on their part also, the ex-
pression of certain sounds will meet with a cer- A cry of death and terror to the foe;

Shadows that still beguile,
Sorrows that wear a smile,
that in dear delusions lead away-
And O! that whispering tone,
Breathed, heard, by one alone,

That, as it dies-a wordless sound-speaks more
than words can say.

tain interpretation.

Here is a martial melody, in which the poet has spoken truly of the inflammable temperament of our population.

"WELL, LET THEM SING THeir heroes.'

1.

Well, let them sing their heroes' deeds of fame,
Their belted warriors great in souls of might,
We too have gallant chiefs we joy to name,

Mighty in spirit, fearless in the fight;
There's not a spot in all this land of ours,

From Ashley's wave to Apalachia's steep, Though smiling now with green, and gay with flowers,

That

has not seen the charging squadrons

sweep;

That has not heard the cry,

Peal in the blood-red sky,

That has not seen the strife
For liberty and life,

and sudden blow.

Such is the language of the lower animals; limited, no doubt, when compared with that of the The dread alarm, the gallant charge, sharp shot human race; yet all-sufficient for their wants, and only inferior because not combined with that higher intelligence which, after all, forms the true distinction between man and his fellows of the animal creation.

AREYTOS, OR SONGS OF THE SOUTH, by W. GILMORE SIMMS, is the title of a little volume recently published at Charleston, South Carolina. It may be had of Paine & Burgess, in this city. Mr. Simms has given us in this collection many beautiful little pieces, the offspring of literary leisure. Many of them seem like improvisations. The following has much depth of feeling as well as beauty of expression.

66 COME WHEN THE EVENING INTO SILENCE CLOSES.

I.

Come when the evening into silence closes,

When the pale stars steal out upon the blue;
And watchful zephyrs, to the virgin roses,
Descend, in sweetest murmurs, bringing dew;
Come to the heart that sadly then declining,

Would need a soothing day has never known;
Come like those stars upon the night-cloud shining,
And bless me with a beauty all thine own.
Beauty of songs and tears,
And blessed tremulous fears-

II.

And if the peace that blossoms through our land,
The boon of valor won from matchless hate,
Be once again by foreign legions bann'd,

And all the terror that was triumph late;
Then shall the spirit of old days awaken,
And through our plains the glorious cry shall
spread :
The share thrown by, the sword again be taken
And plumed war bestride his battle steed:

And

The soul of Sumter then,
Shall stir each hill and glen,

Marion rouse the spirit of the plain;

Brave Moultrie by the deep,

Fling off the ancient sleep,

And from his mountain heights old Pickens dart
again.
Eve. Post.

WHOM TO LOOK TO.-There are six sorts of people at whose hands you need not expect much kindness. The sordid and narrow-minded think of nobody but themselves; the lazy will not take the trouble to serve you; the busy have not time to think of you; the overgrown rich man is above minding any one who needs his assistance; the poor and unhappy have neither spirit nor ability; the good-natured fool, however willing, is not capable of serving you.—Burgh.

WAGERS.

From Chambers' Journal.

THERE are three leading kinds of wagersthose designed to settle a difference of opinion on a question of fact, those speculating merely upon a doubtful future event, and those in which some feat is undertaken under a forfeiture. All are alike contrary to rationality. It may even be said of some wagers that they are immoral. For instance, the second of the above classes is merely a variety of gambling, and therefore not one word can be said in its favor. Those, again, which involve danger to the person of one or other of the parties are utterly indefensible.

There are some things in the history of this absurd practice worthy of being noted. Casuists and legislators have differed very much as to the way in which betting should be regarded in public policy. The general inference to be drawn from the various arguments adduced on both sides of the question is, that it is lawful, unless the object of it bear upon private wishes or criminal actions. As, for example, when, having wagered that such a person will die at such a time, the desire of winning, and the fear of losing, makes the bettor desire, or perhaps hasten, the death of that person; or when the wager is to be won by either the commission of crimes, or the causing others to

commit them.

Titia and the law Cornelia, to bet upon the success of unlawful games, or of any game whatever, address, and bodily strength were to be tested; with the exception of those in which courage, in which case the bettors were accustomed to place in the hands of a third party the signet rings which This deposit, which held the place of a stipulation, they wore on their fingers, as a gage or pledge. rendered the wager obligatory, and produced an action at law; which proves that consignment is absolutely necessary to make the engagement valid. The terrns consignment and wager are used indifferently by lawyers. The etymology of the word wager, or gager, which comes from gage, ventions, unless the gage has been deposited. shows that wagers are not considered serious con

concerned, the wager is obligatory, even though However, where address and bodily strength are the gage has not been deposited: and this is the exception to the rule; for the gage or stake is properly the reward of the address and danger incurred by the subject of the wager. Thus the Count de in his wager against the Duke de

consigned, would, if he had lived, have had an (which he won,) even though he had not action against his adversary. In ancient Greece, the count would have borne away the prize in the horse-race at the Olympic games. The following is the history of this wager :

The count betted 10,000 crowns against the There are other examples of unlawful wagers duke, that in six hours he would go twice, and in which injustice and fraud are included. Injus- back again, from the Porte St. Denis to Chantilly. tice, when, of two bettors, the one is certain, the He had his whole body tightly bandaged round, other uncertain of winning; fraud, when a party and a leaden bullet in his mouth to refresh him, engages, by evil means, or by equivoques in terms by keeping up a supply of moisture. Relays of or intention, to perform any action-as in the cele horses were disposed from space to space, and brated wager of Cleopatra with Mark Anthony. every embarrassment prevented that might in the Cleopatra invites Anthony to supper, and wagers least retard his progress. The swiftest horses that she alone will eat, at one meal, a sum equal were chosen. A clock was attached to the Porte to 80,7291. 3s. 4d. Anthony, seeing nothing ex- St. Denis, to mark the time. He set out with the traordinary, begins to rally the queen on the fru- speed of an arrow, and in a moment was out of gality of her table. She makes no reply, but sight. Never did man cleave the air with such detaches from her ears two pearls of great price, rapidity. On arriving at each relay, without alightone of which she throws into a liquor prepared for ing, he sprang from one horse on to the other, and the purpose, by which it is speedily dissolved, continued his flight. He arrived at the Porte St. and swallows it in the presence of Munatius Plau-Denis, having performed his four courses eighteen cus, the chosen arbiter of the wager; and as she minutes before the appointed time! He said he is about to do the same with the other pearl, Plau- was still able to go to Versailles, to bring the king cus snatches it away, exclaiming that she had already won.

The wager of Asclepiades the physician was not less extravagant. He wagered against fortune that he would never be ill during his life, under penalty of losing the reputation he had acquired of being the most famous physician of his time. It is true that he won his wager; for in fact he never was ill while he lived, having died from a fall in extreme old age.

In several states we find that various kinds of wagers are prohibited, some of which are of very little consequence. At Rome it is unlawful to make wagers on the death or exaltation of the popes, and on the promotion of the cardinals. In several republics it is also forbidden, under heavy penalties, to make wagers without the permission of the magistrate; at Venice, on the election of persons to fill the public offices; at Genoa, on the revolutions of states and kingdoms, the success of military expeditions, purposed marriages, and the departure or arrival of vessels. Bugnion mentions an act of parliament of Paris of 1565, which made it unlawful to make a pregnant female the subject of a wager.

In ancient Rome it was forbidden, by the law

tidings of his success. All bathed in perspiration, he was put into a warm bed, and, five months afterwards, died from the effects of this effort. This nobleman, remarks the narrator of his exploit, deserves no praise for having run such a race. All that can be said of him is, that he would have made the best post-boy in the world.

of which was the cause of great excitement at the Another wager may be mentioned, the wildness

time it was made.

The year 1726 was so rainy, that it seemed as if the flood-gates of heaven were opened. All the rivers overflowed their banks, to the great prejudice of commerce. There were some superstitious persons who announced a second deluge. A Parisian banker named Bulliot having remarked that it had rained excessively on St. Gervais' day, (19th June,) persuaded himself that it would continue to rain for forty days. The motive of this opinion was a proverb current among the people:

S'il pleut le jour de St. Gervais,
Il pleut quarante jours après.*

*If it rain on St. Gervais' day, it will rain for forty days afterwards.

Infatuated by this opinion, and being on that | The comedians, ever alive to the whim of the hour, day in the Café de la Regence, near the Palais acted him in the several theatres. Royal, he entered into conversation with some At length, in spite of the proverb, the windows persons on the subject of the incessant inundations of heaven were closed before the expiration of the which were destroying the hopes of a good harvest, forty days. The coffee-house keeper and the other and exciting apprehensions of a very great rise in depositaries accordingly gave up the stakes to those the price of corn. Bulliot observed that there who had won. The bearers of the bills and letters would be more cause for alarm if the rains con- of exchange had not the same luck. Bulliot's relatinued for forty days longer, and that he was tives caused him to be interdicted as a prodigal. ready to wager that this misfortune was inevitable. This evil prognostic was but badly received by those present, who inquired upon what he founded it. "I am sure of it," he confidently replied. "Let any one bet against me; I am ready to put down my stake." He then threw some louis upon a table, to excite the curious, and defy the incredulous. As his speech was not very sensible, several persons refused to enter the lists against him: but others, more interested, flattered by the hope of winning, put down stakes to the same amount as he did. The money was deposited in the hands of the coffee-house keeper, and the wager registered in the following terms: -"If it rain little or much during forty days from St. Gervais' day, Bulliot has won; if it discontinue raining even for one single day during the forty days, Bulliot has lost."

Several of the bettors, unwilling to engage themselves in a lawsuit of such doubtful event, returned their bills and letters of exchange; others, more avaricious, embarked upon the stormy sea of the courts. The suit, which was first brought to the Chatelet, came at length before the parliament. The bettors, wishing to put the best face possible upon their claim, said nothing about the wager. They only represented that they were merchants, who had accepted the bills in question with confidence, on account of the established credit of Bulliot, who had hitherto satisfied all his creditors; that, to oppose to their claim the interdiction of their debtor, who was not bound by that interdiction at the time of his engagement with them, was to violate the public faith; that, if creditors could be eluded in this way, foreigners would lose all confidence in us; finally, that the good faith of commerce, which is the soul of it, required that the merchants who had given value for those bills, having no reason to distrust Bulliot, should be satisfied. Bulliot's brother, who had been appointed his guardian, made the truth so fully apparent by presumptive proofs and the date of the bills, that, at the end of 1726, a verdict was returned for the defendant, annulling all the wagers.

This wager irritated the cupidity of the whole café, who were eager to appropriate the louis in which Bulliot so abounded; so that, after having staked against all who would bet against him, and after having emptied every purse, he demanded, with a sort of insult, if there were any others ready to oppose him. Believing himself sure of victory, he proposed to those who had no money to stake their gold-headed canes, gold snuff-boxes, and other valuable jewellery; which were duly appraised, and placed in the hands of the same depositary; for all which he put down full value DR. COMBE ON THE OBSERVATION OF NATURE in specie. He even consented that those who had neither money nor jewels should deposit their Holland shirts, against which he also consigned their value in money.

The contagion of this folly having spread abroad, the next day brought a fresh reinforcement of antagonists, who presented themselves at the same café to put down their stakes against Bulliot. But his money being at length exhausted, he offered those new-comers bills payable to the bearer, or letters of exchange. As he was in good repute, and had always honored his engagements, his proposal was accepted. He gave bills and letters of exchange to the amount of nearly 50,000 crowns; all which were likewise deposited. It might be said of Bulliot that he was alone against all, and that if he won, he would make the finest haul in the world; whilst the whole troop of his adversaries would be ruined by the inclemency of the

From Chambers' Journal.

IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

IN the British and Foreign Medical Review for January last, the editor, Dr. Forbes, presented an elaborate paper on Homopathy, in which, while treating that novel system more liberally than is customary in the orthodox profession, he made such a number of admissions as to the state of ordinary medicine, as, coming from such a quarter, might well startle the public. We do not propose to say more on this paper at present, than that it meets but too aptly conclusions at which we have long arrived regarding medical practice. Our immediate aim is, to direct attention to a paper which the above has elicited from the pen of Dr. Combe, and which appears in the number of the Review for April. This eminent person, as is his custom, takes the subject at once before the bar of nature. He sees disease to be "a perverted state of a natural organic action, and not a something thrown into the system by accident, and obeying no fixed laws. In the cure of disease, therefore," says he, "the business of the physician is not to supersede nature, but carefully to observe what is wrong, and to aid the efforts made by her to reestablish regularity and order. Accordingly, experience shows that the physician and the remedy are useful only when they act in accordance with the laws of the constitution and the intentions of nature; hence in chronic, and A nobleman of high rank jestingly said, that if even in acute diseases, the most effective part of Bulliot won, he should be tried for sorcery; and the treatment is generally the hygienic, or that that if he lost, he should be put in bedlam. In which consists in placing all the organs under the fine, he was the subject of every conversation. most favorable circumstances for the adequate

weather.

Fame, as usual, added new embellishments to this story, as she sped it on from ear to ear, through city and court. Every one was anxious to see this extraordinary man. Those who knew him by sight, pointed him out to those who did not. His countenance was attentively observed, and eyes were opened wide upon him. When asked why he was so steadfast in his opinion, he alleged the proverb before mentioned, which the people have adopted more for rhyme than reason.