back of a splendid Lincolnshire hogget sheep, and was taken off and wound into a fleece on or about the 15th of June, 1863. The shepherd who took me from the sheep, spread me out to my greatest length and breadth; he then tore me into two parts, and, laying one half upon the other, rolled me up compactly. He next drew from my midst a sufficient length of my wool, which, being twisted, he put round me, and tied and tucked me into proper form, pronouncing me to be one of the finest fleeces, and weighing full twenty pounds. He proudly placed me in the 'pile.' I was there visited and admired by several 'wool buyers' and the pile of wool was at length sold by my owner for the sum of sixty-three shillings per tod-my own value being taken to be about forty-eight shillings upon the day of weighing, ie, allowing a trifle for my extra size and quality. "I was speedily taken up to what are termed the manufacturing districts, and consigned to an intermediate man of business, called a woolstapler, who assorts' wool, and thus prepares it for the manufacturer. He soon opened me out, and with his quick eye and delicate touch separated me into no less than ten different parcels, which he thus designated: the picklock, the prime, the choice, the super, the head, the downrights, the seconds, the abb, the livery, and the breech wool. For all these 'sorts' he had separate baskets into which they were thrown. To my credit be it known, I was subsequently found, with but trifling deduction, in the first four named baskets; so that, with the exception of small portions of me, that came from the head, legs, breech, &c., of the hogget, I was taken for sound good wool, and thus offered to the manufacturers. "I was first bought by a spinner of woollen yarn, and sold as yarn to a manufacturer of alpaca cloths. According to my varied quality I was appropriated-the picklock for the finest qualities, and so in degree for the other qualities of alpaca cloths. Before, however, I was put under process of manufacture, an examination of my qualities took place. It was found that it would take above 500 of my fibres to cover the diameter of an inch; and the number of serrations or saw-like teeth of an inch in length of my fibres, would reach fully 1,860, or nearly 2,000 serrations inch in length. This, I learned, made me valuable in the manufacture to which I was now to be appropriated. The cotton admixture in these fabrics will not hold well together per SO except by the aid of the teeth of my fibres, which take hold of the cotton fibre in the process of weaving, and hold both together, thus making a sound and serviceable cloth. "In the process of manufacture which I was compelled to undergo, I was first submitted to the process of dyeing, i. e., made to assume the colour I was intended subsequently to wear. I was then most unceremoniously subjected to what might in some circumstances be called a cruel operation; I was torn bit from bit, till I became separated into very minute portions. This was done by a machine known as the scribbler,' which consists of a number of large wooden cylinders, placed horizontally on a frame, and almost touching each other, with smaller cylinders placed above them, and also nearly touching. To these a rotatory motion is given by steam power. These cylinders are covered with iron teeth, very minute and closely set, and slightly bent. They revolve in opposite directions, in close contact, so that the teeth work against or within each other. I was put into this machine, and was so tormented and torn to pieces, and transferred from one cylinder to another, that at last I came forth like a thin flake, of most gauze-like texture, having by this process lost my woolly appearance altogether. I was then taken to another tormentor called a 'carder,' having numerous cylinders, with wires, or teeth, of finer texture. I was again subjected to a similar process, but more definitely; for I now came forth in small rolls, about thirty inches long, and was immediately taken up by children, and dexterously put-to, and was joined upon the billy,' a sort of preparatory spinning for the spinning machine, technically called 'slubbing.' 6 "In this rough state I was next subjected to the spinning machine, where I underwent all the turnings and twistings and gradations, from that wondrously ingenious machine, necessary to draw me out into the finest and longest yarn, or thread, imaginable. I cannot state, or attempt to calculate, the enormous length to which my fibres were drawn out or extended. I, however, can give some reliable estimate, from what is authentically recorded in the books, of other spinnings, and from fibres much like my own. wich, many years since, 39,200 yards, or 224 miles, were spun from a pound of wool; and Miss Ives, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, spun 168,000 yards, or about 95 miles, of woollen thread from a pound of wool, from a sheep the S S At Nor produce of a Lincoln ewe. This was fifty or sixty years ago. What can be accomplished now? The quantity of yarn, or thread, spun from my fleece was, I would say, almost in credible. "I was next handed over to the weaver, who, being determined to make the most of me, made me work up an unusual quantity of cotton, so that I was again spread out to a very broad extent; and the quantity of cloth made by my fibre, or yarn, and the yarns of my colleague, cotton, was also incredible. The fabric we jointly made, called 'fine alpaca,' was three feet wide, and was extended to the extraordinary length of at least six hundred and fifty yards. Nor was this the whole of my fleece; for though but little was found in the 'bad baskets,' yet that little sufficed for a few socks for the children who so dexterously manipulated me on the 'billy.' "Well, I was now embodied into a fine alpaca cloth; and as such, it was my lot to be sold to a retail shopkeeper, resident in an old-fashioned country town, who introduced me to his customers as 'the newest thing out; both cheap and good, a substitute for silk as a dress, and not exceeding three shillings per yard.' This shopkeeper's beautiful fabric was considered fashionable. It took; and presently every lady in the town, together with most of their grown daughters, were clothed from my fleece, and that without exhausting his stock. The sum received by this shopkeeper for me, would be something like this (for I don't estimate my colleague very highly): The price of six hundred and fifty yards, at three shillings per yard, would amount to ninetyseven pounds ten shillings; taking off onethird for my cotton colleague, just leaves for my manufactured fleece the sum of sixty-five pounds, which sum has been paid by those who wear me. Of course, it is understood that I was manufactured into one of the finest varieties of alpaca cloth, or I should not have attained such a high price in the original produce market, nor retained it in the retail trade. "I was delighted, in the first instance, with the favour I received, and the price paid for me by the 'wool-buyer'-i. e., forty-eight shillings; but I never could have conceived that, by one means or other-call it transmigration, transformation, or transfiguration,-I could ever become of the value of sixty-five pounds, or, combined with my cotton colleague, ninety-seven pounds ten shillings. Little did I think of such a change of state, when I was quietly reposing on and adorning the back of the Lincolnshire hogget; nor could any of the eighty or ninety ladies in the quiet old country town, who at length wore me in all the broad expanse of crinoline, suppose that they were indebted to one single fleece for all their comeliness and beauty of dress. The thing, incredible as it appears, is, however, founded on fact, and I need only refer you to my manufacturer, to testify to the truth of it. If it had not been for skilled labour and perfected machinery, I should have been confined to the meanest sphere of usefulness; but by such aids I was enabled to diffuse my native warmth and beauty to almost every family in the oldfashioned town." B TREATMENT AND CONDITION OF WOMEN IN FORMER TIMES. ROM the subversion of the Roman Empire to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, women spent most of their time alone, almost entire strangers to the joys of social life; they seldom went abroad, but to be spectators of such public diversions and amusements as the fashions of the times countenanced. Francis I. was the first who introduced women on public days to Court. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the use of linen was not known; and the most delicate of the fair sex wore woollen shifts. In Paris they had meat only three times a week; and one hundred livres (about five pounds sterling) was a large portion for a young lady. The better sort of citizens used splinters of wood and rags dipped in oil, instead of candles, which, in those days, were a rarity hardly to be met with. To ride in a two-wheeled cart, along the dirty rugged streets, was reckoned a grandeur of so envi able a nature, that Philip the Fair prohibited the wives of citizens from enjoying it. In the time of Henry VIII. of England, the peers of the realm carried their wives behind them on horseback, when they went to London; and in the same manner took them back to their country seats, with hoods of waxed linen over their heads, and wrapped in mantles of cloth to secure them from the cold. Leaves from the Book of Nature: Descriptive Narrative, &c. A THOUSAND AND ONE STORIES FROM NATURE. ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. BY THE REV. F. O. MORRIS, B.A., RECTOR OF NUNBURNHOLME, YORKSHIRE, AND CHAPLAIN TO HIS GRACE THE PARTRIDGE. CXII. In the spring of this year (1867), my son brought from India a tame (?) red-legged hill partridge, which now runs about our garden, and is in very deed lord of the domain, for it drives all four-legged intruders out of its adopted territory. The moment our pet terrier runs down the lawn, out rushes "Tetah" (Hindustani for partridge), and attacks her with such persistent pugnacity that, although the dog sometimes attempts to assert an equal right to the turf by knocking the bird over with her paws, still "Tetah," nothing daunted, quickly returns to the charge, and, in the end, invariably comes off the conqueror—a feat proclaimed by a loud "chuck-a-chuck," repeated continuously till the enemy is out of sight, frequently pursuing" Motè,"* the dog, upstairs to the very top of the house. Some large Persian kittens, too, share the same fate, having hastily to decamp whenever "Tetah" catches a glimpse of them. My son tells me that on the voyage home this courageous bird asserted a similar right to supremacy on deck, his especial object of attack being a large gander, which was always compelled to beat a retreat, and, ostrich-like, push his head into a place of safety, regardless of his tail, which was left exposed to the peccant propensities of his red-legged enemy.W. T. H., Hoddesdon. THE HONEY BUZZARD. CXIII. Of all the birds of prey with which I am acquainted the honey buzzard is apparently the gentlest, the kindest, and the most capable of attachment; it seems to possess little of the fierceness of that tribe. It will follow me round the garden, cowering and shaking its * Hindustani for Jewel. wings, though not soliciting food, uttering at the same time a plaintive sound, something like the whistle of the golden plover, but softer and much more prolonged. Though shy with strangers, it is very fond of being noticed and caressed by those to whose presence it has been accustomed. In the same garden there are three lapwings, a blue-backed gull, and a curlew. The plovers are often seen with the buzzard sitting in the midst of them showing no signs of caution or apprehension, but seem as if they were listening to a lecture delivered by him. The gull frequently retires into the garden house, probably to enjoy the society of the buzzard. The garden is not the garden of Eden, and yet these birds, of different natures, habits, and dispositions, appear to live in perfect harmony, peace, and good fellowship with each other. THE ASS. CXIV. At Ostend, when the market women, who are there particularly kind and lenient to their donkeys, come from the country with vegetables and other articles for sale on a market day, these donkeys are put altogether into a barn or large stable; and when the door is opened, after the market is over, they all scamper away, and never stop till they reach each its proper owner in the market place, ready and willing to carry their mistresses home, and whatever else they may choose to lay on their backs. THE BLACKBIRD. CXV. Mr. Shand, merchant, Dufftown, has a black. bird, got last season, from a nest in his garden, which whistles several tunes with extraordinary clearness and accuracy. In particular, he whistles "The Quaker's Wife" in a style that attracts the attention of the passers-by. The bird is as sensible as he is gifted; for the other day, on a wounded crow being placed on the top of its cage, the blackbird, after taking a minute inspection of the crow, lifted a piece of bread from the bottom of its cage and put it through the bars at the top for the crow to eat. THE CAT. CXVI. A duck, having hatched out a brood of young ones, was, with all her progeny, placed by her careful owner in a basket lined with flannel, by the kitchen fire. Now, it chanced that a cat was in the habit of sleeping away much of her days, as cats are wont to do, by the same fire. The new arrival seemed to interest her mightily, and so great an attachment did she conceive for them, that nothing would suffice but the ejection of their natural parent, and the substitution of herself as their mother. She was seen to go quietly to the basket, and after gently expelling the old duck, a work of little labour, to place herself with great care and gentleness on the young ones, warming them with her body, quietly replacing them with her paw, when they attempted to clamber up the sides of the basket, and otherwise play. ing the part of a kind foster-mother. This continued during a period of three weeks at least, during which time my informant occa sionally saw them; but I regret that he could not give me the sequel of their history, whether the cat continued faithfully to discharge her self-imposed office, and whether the young ducks throve under her care. WOODEN COWS. ERSONS who reside in our large | towns, especially the largest, are very apt to slander the milkman, and ascribe the semi-lactescent appearance of his commodity to a free use of 'the cow with an iron tail." It is not our intention to join in any such scandal, for the milk of our history is genuine and unadulterated, although not derived from a quadrupedal cow, goat, or any animal whatever. Some, perhaps most, of our readers will have heard something of the existence of vegetable cows, or plants yielding milk; it is of these "wooden cows" we purpose to refresh their memories. The caoutchouc, or india-rubber of commerce, as it exudes from the tree, very much resembles milk in colour and density. Many other plants yield a similar fluid, and in some instances this is so sweet and palatable as to be employed by the natives for almost all the purposes of animal milk. The "Cow-tree of Demerara" was first observed by a traveller of the ubiquitous family of Smith, in an excursion up that river. It is described as a tree from thirty to forty feet in height, with a diameter at the base of nearly eighteen inches. This tree is known to botanists by the name of Tabernæmontana utilis, and to the natives as the Hya-hya. It belongs to the same natural order as the Penang India-rubber tree, and the Poison-tree of Madagascar (Apocynaceae). It occurs plenti fully in the forests of British Guiana, and its bark and pith are so rich in milk, that a moderately-sized stem, which was felled on the bank of a forest stream, in the course of an hour coloured the water quite white and milky. The milk is said to be thicker and richer than cow's milk, mixes freely with water, and is perfectly innocuous, and of a pleasant flavour; the natives employing it as a refreshing drink, and in all respects as animal milk. The Cynghalese have also a tree which they call "Kiriaghuma," but which belongs to a different order of plants (Asclepiadaceae). It is the Gymnema lactiferum, and yields a very pleasant milk, which is employed for domestic purposes in Ceylon. There appears to be also a milk-tree common in the forests of Para which the natives call "Massenodendron," but of which we have no definite knowledge, except that it was for a considerable time used on board H.M.S. Chanticleer as a substitute for cow's milk. It was said to suffer no chemical change by keeping, neither did it show any tendency to become sour. The most celebrated of all the cow-trees was that discovered and made known by Humboldt as the "Palo de Vaca," or "cow-tree." Singu larly enough it belongs to a different natural order from those already mentioned (Artocarpacea), and to one which includes also the poisonous Upas-tree of Java. The botanical name of this cow-tree is Galactodendron utile, the "useful milk-tree," or, as more recently called, Brosimum utile. Its discoverer states that while staying at the farm of Barbula in the valleys of Aragua, "we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment; and we found by experience during our stay that the virtues of this tree had not been exaggerated. When incisions are made in the trunk, it yields abundance of a glutinous milk, tolerably thick, devoid of all acridity, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. It was offered to us in the shell of a calabash. We drank considerable quantities of it in the evening before we went to bed, and very early in the morning, without feeling the least injurious effect. The viscosity of this milk alone renders it a little disagreeable. The negroes and the free people who work in the plantations drink it, dipping into it their bread of maize or cassava. The overseer of the farm told us that the negroes grow sensibly fatter during the season when the Palo de Vaca furnishes them with most milk. This juice, exposed to the air, presents on its surface membranes of a strongly animalized substance, yellowish, stringy, and resembling cheese. The people call it cheese. This coagulum becomes sour in the space of four or five days." This extraordinary tree appears to be peculiar to the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to the Lake of Maracaybo. At Caucagua the natives call the tree that furnishes this nourishing juice, the "milk-tree" (arbol del leche). They profess to recognize, from the thickness and colour of the foliage, the trunks that yield the most juice; as the herdsman distinguishes, from the external signs, a good milch-cow. Amidst the great number of curious phenomena which I have observed in the course of my travels," continues the discoverer quoted above, "I confess there are few that have made so powerful an impression on me as the aspect of the cow-tree. A few drops of vege table juice recall to the mind all the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months in the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The negroes and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at its surface. Some empty their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their children." Mr. D. Lochart also visited the cow-trees in the Caraccas, and drank of the milk from a tree which had a trunk seven feet in diameter, and measured one hundred feet from the root to the first branch. Sir R. K. Porter also paid them a visit, and his observations confirm those already recited. "The colour and consistency," he says, were precisely those of animal milk, with a taste not less sweet and palatable; yet it left on the tongue a slight bitterness, and on the lips a considerable clamminess; an aromatic smell was most strongly perceptible when tasting it." Other trees are known which possess similar properties to a greater or less extent. One of these is the "Tabayba dolce" of the Canaries (Euphorbia balsamifera). Here again we have a plant belonging to a different natural order from any of the others, namely, the Euphorbiaceae, and one containing a large number of plants with acrid and purgative juices. Leopold von Buch states that the juice of this plant is similar to sweet milk, and, thickened into a jelly, is eaten as a delicacy. A species of Cactus (C. mamillaris) also yields a milky juice equally sweet and wholesome. It now constitutes the type of a genus called Mamillaria. The milk is affirmed to be much inferior in its quality to the majority of the above. Al It would scarcely be advisable for us to enter here upon the subject of the chemical composition of any of these vegetable juices, or to show their connection with those lactescent fluids which harden upon exposure, and then are known as india-rubber or caoutchouc. though none of the cow-trees enumerated yield a true india-rubber, that substance, or one greatly resembling it, is afforded by some of their allies. It is curious to observe how, when failing to serve mankind in one direction, these trees become important servants in another. How forcibly this reminds us of the quaint lines of George Herbert "More servants wait on Man, He treads down that which doth befriend him, Oh, mighty love! Man is one world, and hath |