those of the partridge and pheasant. Of the
mixed-coloured eggs, those of which white forms the ground belong to
birds that make very close nests. Speckled eggs, with a dark or dirty
ground, belong to the largest number of species. Almost all the song
birds lay such eggs; and building open nests, they almost invariably
line the inside of them with materials of a harmonious colour with the
eggs, so that no evident contrast is presented which would lead to their
destruction.--_Companion to the Almanac._

* * * * *

EFFECTS OF SEA AIR.

Those who frequent the sea-coast are not long in discovering that their
best dyed black hats become of a rusty brown; and similar effects are
produced on some other colours. The brown is, in fact, _rust_. Most, if
not all, the usual black colours have iron for a basis, the black oxide
of which is developed by galls, logwood, or other substances containing
gallic acid. Now the sea-air contains a proportion of the muriates over
which it is wafted; and these coming in contact with any thing dyed
black, part with their hydrochloric (_muriatic_) acid, and form brown
hydrochlorate of iron, or contribute to form the brown or red oxide,
called rust. The gallic acid, indeed, from its superior affinity, has
the strongest hold of the iron; but the incessant action of the sea-air,
loaded with muriates, partially overcomes this, in the same way as any
acid, even of inferior affinity to the gallic, when put upon black
stuff, will turn it brown.--_Ibid._

* * * * *

THE DUGONG, THE MERMAID OF EARLY WRITERS.

Of all the cetacea, that which approaches the nearest in form to man is
undoubtedly the dugong, which, when its head and breast are raised above
the water, and its pectoral fins, resembling hands, are visible, might
easily be taken by superstitious seamen for a semi-human
being.--_Edinburgh Journal._

* * * * *

SPIDERS.

Live and grow without food. Out of fifty spiders produced on the last
day of August, and which were kept entirely without food, three lived to
the 8th of February following, and even visibly increased in bulk. Was
it from the effluvia arising from the dead bodies of their companions
that they lived so long? Other spiders were kept in glass vessels
without food, from the 15th of July till the end of January. During that
time they cast their skins more than once, as if t