On the Bayd, or Indian gross-beak; by Athar Ali Khan, of Delhi. [From the Asiatic Researches.]

TH

HE little bird called Bayà, in Hindi, Berbera in Sanscrit, Bàbùi in the dialect of Bengal, Cíbù in Persian, and Tenawwit in Arabic, from his remarkable pendent nest, is rather larger than a sparrow, with yellow-brown plumage, a yellowish head and feet, a light-coloured breast, and a conie beak very thick in proportion to his body. This bird is exceedingly common in Hindostan: he is astonishingly sensible, faithful, and docile, never voluntarily deserting the place where his young were hatched, but not averse, like most other birds, to the society of mankind, and easily taught to perch on the hand of his master. In a state of nature, he generally builds his nest on the highest tree that he can find, especially on the palmyra, or on the Indian figtree, and he prefers that which happens to overhang a well or a rivu et: he makes it of grass, which he weaves like cloth, and shapes like a large bottle, suspending it firmly on the branches, but so as to rock with the wind, and placing it with its entrance downward, to secure it from birds of prey. His nest usually consists of two or three chambers; and it is the popular belief, that he lights

them with fire-flies, which he catches alive at night, and confines with moist clay, or with cow-dung: that such flies are often found in his nest, where pieces of cow-dung are also stuck, is indubitable; but as their light could be of little use to him, it seems probable that he only feeds on them. He may be taught, with ease, to fetch a piece of paper, or any

small thing that his master point out to him: it is an attested fact, that if a ring be dropped into a deep well, and a signal given to him, he will fly down with amazing celerity, catch the ring before it touches the water, and bring it up to his master with apparent exultation; and it is confidently asserted, that if a house, or any other place, be shown to him once or twice, he will carry a note thither immediately, on a proper signal being made. One instance of his docility I can myself mention with confidence, having often been an eye-witness of it. The young Hindu women, at Banares, and in other places, wear very thin plates ofgold, called ticas, slightly fixed, by way of ornament, between their eye-brows, and, when they pass through the streets, it is not uncommon for the youthful libertines, who amuse themselves with training Bayàs, to give them a signal, which they understand, and send them to pluck the pieces of gold from the foreheads of their mistresses, which they bring in triumph to the lovers. The Bayà feeds naturally on grass-hoppers, and other insects, but will subsist, when tame, on pulse macerated in water: his flesh is warm and drying, of easy digestion, and recommended, in medical books, as a solvent of stone in the bladder or kidneys; but of that virtue there is no sufficient proof.

The

The female lays many beautiful eggs, resembling large pearls; the white of them, when they are boiled, is transparent, and the flavour of them is exquisitely delicate. When many Bayàs are assembled on a high tree, they make a lively din, but it is rather chirping than singing: their want of musical talents is, however, amply supplied by their wonderful sagacity, in which they are not excelled by any feathered inhabitants of the forest.

Case of a person becoming shortThomas Henry, F. R. S. &c. sighted in advanced age, by [From vol. 3 of "Memoirs of the Manchester Literary Society."]

tomed himself to read a book printed in a small character, and that frequently in the close of the evening, when the light was not favourable for the purpose.

1..

As this is an uncommon fact, and may serve to confirm the propriety of the doctrine I have alluded to, I thought it might be proper to communicate it to the society.

Instance of living animals found inclosed in solid bodies. [From the European Magazine.]

varies from the ordinary laws T HE more a fact is singular, and varies from the of nature, the more it merits the attention of the philosopher and amateur. When once sufficiently con

that a method had been recommended, but where, or by whom I do not recollect, of preventing the necessity of using spectacles in advanced age. It consisted in the practice of reading a very small print by the light of a small candle. By this means, the humours of the eye being protruded, the chrystalline lens was supposed to be hindered from losing its convex form, and assuming that flatness which it acquires in old persons.

I lately met with a gentleman, who, contrary to what generally happens to men as they advance in life, was, at the age of fifty, become short-sighted: whereas, when younger, his eyes had not that fault; and who, instead of being obliged to use convex glasses, had found it necessary to employ concave ones, and to procure them still more the older he grew. This change in his sight, he informed me, he first observed after having for some time accus

to prevailing opinions, it is entitled to a place in the rank of knowledge. The most obstinate scepticism cannot destroy its certainty, and can only afford a proof of the presumption and pride, which leads us to deny whatever we are incompetent to explain. The following phenomena are of this kind. They are such as have occurred to us in the course of our reading; and we have collected them from the hope that some one, whose studies may have been directed to such objects, will enlarge the list. The nore they are multiplied, the greater light will probably be thrown upon them; and it will perhaps one day be matter of surprise, that we have been so long ignorant of their cause.

In 1683, Mr. Blondel reported to the academy, that, at Toulon, oysters, good to eat, were frequently found inclosed in pieces of stone.

In 1685, M. de Cassini mentions a similar fact, from the testimony of

M.

M.Duraffe, ambassador at the court of Constantinople, who assured him that stones were frequently found there, in which were inclosed little animals called dactyles.

The following instances are not less curious, and are more recent.

Some workmen, in a quarry at Boursire, in Gotha, having detached a large piece of stone from the mass, found, on breaking it, a live toad; they were desirous of separating the part that bore the shape of the animal, but it crumbled into sand. The toad was of a dark grey, its back a little speckled. The colour of its belly was brighter. Its eyes, small and circular, emitted fire from beneath a tender membrane which covered them. They were of the colour of pale gold. When touched on the head with a stick, it closed its eyes, as if asleep, and gradually opened them again when the stick was taken away. It was incapable of any other motion. The aperture of the mouth was closed, by means of a yellowish membrane. Upon pressing it on the back, it discharged some clear water, and died. Under the membrane which covered the mouth, were found, both in the upper and lower jaw, two sharp teeth, which were stained with a little blood. How long it had been in closed in this stone, is a question that cannot be solved.

M. le Prince, a celebrated sculp tor, asserts, in like manner, that he saw, in 1756, in the house of M. de la Rivière, at Ecretteville, a living toad, in the centre of a hard stone, with which it was, as it were, incrusted; and facts of this kind are less rare than is imagined.

In 1764, some workmen, in a quarry in Lorrain, informed Mr,

Grignon, that they had found a toad in a mass of stone forty-five feet below the surface of the earth. This celebrated naturalist went immediately to the spot, but could not perceive, as he assures us, in his "Treatise on the Fabrication of Iron," any vestige of the prison of this animal. A small cavity was visible in the stone, but it bore no impression of the body of the toad. The toad that was shown him was of a middling size, of a grey colour, and seemed to be in its natural state. The workmen informed Mr. Grignon, that this was the sixth that had been found in these mines, within the space of thirty years. Mr. Grignon considered the circumstance as worthy a more particular attention, and he promised, therefore, a reward to any person who should find him another instance of a toad so inclosed, in a stone that it had no means of getting out.

In 1770, a toad was brought to him, inclosed in two hollow shells of stone, in which it was said to have been found; but on examining it nicely, Mr. Grignon perceived, that the cavity bore the impression of a shell-fish, and, of consequence, he concluded it to be apocryphal. In 1771, however, another instance occurred, and was the subject of a curious memoir, read by M. Guettard to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. It was thus related by that famous naturalist :

In pulling down a wall, which was known to have existed upwards of a hundred years, atoad was found, without the smallest aperture being discoverable, by which it could have entered. Upon inspecting the animal, it was apparent that it had been dead but a very little

time; and in this state it was presented to the academy, which induced M. Guettard to make repeated inquiries into this subject, the particulars of which will be read with pleasure, in the excellent memoir we have just cited.

These phenomena remind us of others of a similar nature, and equally certain. In the trunk of an elm, about the size of a man's body, three or four feet above the root, and precisely in the centre, was found, in 1719, a live toad of a moderate size, thin, and which occupied but a very small space. As soon as the wood was cut, it came out and skipped away very alertly. No tree could be more sound. No place could be discovered through which it was possible for the animal to have penetrated, which led the recorder of the fact to suppose, that the spawn, from which it originated, must, by some unaccountable accident, have been in the tree from the very first moment of its vegetation. The toad had lived in the tree without air, and, what is still more surprising, had subsisted on the substance of the wood, and had grown in proportion as the tree had grown. This fact was attested by Mr. Hebert, ancient professor of philosophy at Caen.

In 1731, Mr. Seigne wrote to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, an account of a phenomenon exactly similar to the preceding one, except that the tree was larger, and was an oak instead of an elm, which makes the instance more surprising.-From the size of the oak, Mr. Seigne judged that the toad must have existed in it, without air, or any external nourishment, for the space of eighty or a hundred years.

We shall cite a third instance, re

lated in a letter, of the 5th of February, 1780, written from the neighbourhood of Saint Mexent, of which the following is a copy:

"A few days ago, I ordered an oaktree, of a tolerable size, to be cut down, and converted into a beam that was wanting for a building which I was then constructing. Having separated the head from the trunk, three men were employed in squaring it to the proper size. About four inches were to be cut away on each side. I was present during the transaction. Conceive what was my astonishment, when I saw them throw aside their tools, start back from the tree, and fix their eyes on the same point, with a kind of amazement and terror! I instantly approached, and looked at the part of the tree which had fixed their attention. My surprise equalled theirs, on seeing a toad about the size of a large pullet's egg, incrusted, in a manner, in the tree, at the distance of four inches from the diameter, and fifteen from the root. It was cut and mangled by the axe, but it still moved. I drew it with difficulty from its abode or rather prison, which it filled so completely, that it seemed to have been compressed. I placed it on the grass: it appeared old, thin, languishing, decrepid. We afterwards examined the tree with the nicest care, to discover how it had glided in; but the tree was perfectly whole and sound.

These facts, but particularly the memoir of M. Guettard, induced M. Herissan to make experiments, calculated to ascertain their certainty.

February 21, 1771, he inclosed three live toads, in so many cases of plaster, and shut them up in a deal box, which he also covered with a