SCIENTIFIC NOTES.

French silk merchants talk of acclimatising a spiderfromthe African coast, which makes a thread almost like yellow silk and almost as strong. Hypoazotic acid is a new French ex plosive, which, instead of replacing various atomic portions of cellulose, as in gun cotton, or the alcohols, as in nitre-glycerine, by nitrogen, does this in compounds of petroleum. The result is a vastly more powerful explosive. It has lately been proved that under certain conditions yeast may be a powerful poison. If introduced in suspension into tho circulation of living animals to the ex tent of more than two grammes, it always produces fatal results ; in smaller doses it induces coma. This is due to the fact that It multiplies in tho blood, depriving the red corpuscles of their oxygen and reducing their colour to a dark brown. Sufl'erers from certain common forms of indigestion forget tho effects of loading tho stomach with cold liquids. "Cold drinks aro often depressing," says the "Lancet," "and the peculiar form of indigestion just now very prevalent, in which food retained an unreasonable time in the stomach, is in a largo proportion of instances the direct effect of persistent chilling of the gastric organ by copious draughts of cold drink." The French Government is experimenting near Lille upon some naval and siege guns of novel construction and enormous power. One of these, as described by a technical journal, is of steel, and nearly twenty foet long. The tube is strengthened with ten coils of plaited steel wire, one millimetre (O.OSOinch) in diameter. The composition is such that tho cannon, after a few dis charges, becomes elongated by three milli metres. Tho weight of the gun is fifty tons; it pi-ojects a shell weitrhing '2i)_ pounds, capable of penetrating armour plates nearly six inches thick at a range of seven and a half miles, and its cost'has been $110,160.

The Cunning of Elephants.

The highest mental faculties are more developed in the elephant than in any other animal, except the dog and the monkey. The general fact that elephants are habitually employed in parts of India for storing timber, building, &c, shows a high level of docile intelligence. But per haps in no labour in which they are em ployed do they display a more wonderful sagacity than in helping to catch wild elephants. A herd of wild elephants is driven into a corral, and two tame ones ridden in among them. Two decoys will crowd up on either side of a wild one, and protect the nooser until a rope is fastened round the wild elephant's leg, when the tame one, to whose collar the other end of the rope is fastened, will drag the cap tive out and wind the rope round a tree, while the other decoy prevents any in terference from the herd, and pushes the captive toward the tree, thus enabling the first one to take in the slack of the rope. The conduct of the tame ones during all these proceedings is truly wonderful. They display the most perfect conception of every movement, both of the object to be •obtained and of the means to accomplish it. On one occasion, in tying lip a large elep hant, he contrived, before he could be hauled close up to the tree, to walk once or twice around it, carrying the rope with him ; the fdecoy, perceiving the advantage he had thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord and pushed him back ward with her head till she made him un wind himself again, upon which the rope was hauled tight and made fast. One could almost fancy there was a dis play of dry humour in the manner in which the decoys thus play with the fears of tho wild herd, and make light of their efforts of resistance. When reluctant they shove them forward, when violent they drive them back ; when the wild ones throw themselves down, the tame ones butt them with head and shoulders and force them up again ; and, when it is necessary to keep them down they kneel upon them, and pre vent them from rising till the ropes are secured.

A remarkable degree of cunning was dis played by an elephant who had been chained to a tree, and whose driver had made an oven at a short distance in which to put some rice cakes to bake. Tho man covered his cakes with stone and grass and went away. When he was gone the elephant with his trunk unfastened the chain round his foot, went to the oven and uncovered it, took out the cakes, re-covered the oven with the stone and grass as before, and went back to his place. He could not fasten tho chain again around his own foot, so lie twisted it round and round it, in order to look the same, and when the driver returned the elephant was standing with hie back to the oven. The driver went for his cakes, discovered the theft, and, looking round, caught the elephant's eye as he looked back over his shoulder out of the corner of it. Instantly ho detected the culprit, and condign punishment followed.—" Popular Science Monthly."

The Number Nine.

„ V s- writes from Mercer as follows : —it the sum of the digits composing a row of figures representing a number in the de cimal sealo to subtracted from that num ber, the sum of the digits in their difference will equal the sum of an exact number of ?£!£><« i .f^Pk ■• Let the number 7390,CS Written. The sum of its digits !f-<r i * +7+C+S) =40 ; and the difference between thogiven number and the sum of its digits is (73007C5—10) = 7300728. tho.f,l^ mt' cant figures bo added, their sum will Tie found to contain 9 an exact number of times ; for (7 + 3 + 9 . 7 " <, + 8) = 36and3econtoins9exactlyfoT J rtirne S : The above, one of many curious pro oerties possessed by the number nine, may bo made use of to amuse a party of youn£ persons. Let each youngster be told (1) to write in a horizontal lino a row of figures • (2) to find the sum of the digits compost his or her number; (3) to subtractTthei? sum from the original number • and (41 to strike out one figure from the remainder (such figure not : tobe a9 or 0.) The sum of tlie remaumig digits must then be read out by each person and the proposed who is supposed to be initiated' shall at once, without seeing the paper or slate, name the figure struck out in each case. This he will be able to do if ho :bears in mind that the numbers road out will be les3 than the next greater containing an exact number of nines by as many units as were expressed by the digits cancelled. N.B. It is important that tho additions and subtractions be correctly made.

Sir, —In regard to this subject the follow ing may be of interest:—lf the order of the digits expressing a number be changed, and this number be subtracted from the former, the remsrindor will bo o,'or a multiple of 9 ; and being a multiple of 9, the sum of its digits will be 9, viz.— take 21, reverse the dibits, and we got 12, and 12 from 21 = 9 ; again take 36, reverse, and you get 63, and 36 from 63=27, and 7 + 2= 9; and the same property found m two numbers thus changed is found in the same number raiseS to any-power viz 21 and 12. The .square is 441 and 144 and 441-144 = 297, a multiple of 9 ; the cube of 21 is 9,201, and

of 12 is 1,72S —difference, 7,533, also a multiple of 9.—Yours, &c, F. A. G. Cottkkell, Devonport.

The Number Nine. —The Problem Salved.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Seeing an enquiry in the Star Sui'it.kment of September Ist respecting a certain property of the number nine, I ven ture to send you a solution of the question. Let us begin by stating the question in general terms. Find a number {z) such, that when multiplied by any whole number (re), tho sum of the digits of the product may be a constant number (c). Now let me point out that any number of two digits, e.g., 27, represents 2x 10 + 7, of three digits, e.<7.;430, represents 4x 100 + 3xlo +6, and so on. .•. Supposing the product az to con sist of two digits, we have and by conditions of question x+y=c subtracting 10x+y=az x+v=c 9x=az—c x=as—c 9 but xis a digit.". a whole number .". az—c must be a multiple of 9. It is evident this must bo the case ; if ==9 c=9, or a multiple of 9, and it is also evident (remembering that a may represent axy whole number) that no other values for z and c will satisfy the con ditions.—Q.E.D. Tohunga. Te Awamutu. P.S. —If the product az consisted of more than two digits, the result would be the same— loow-hWx+j/=a~ w+ x+y= c 90w+ 9x=az—c llto+ x =az—c 9~~ .". as before az—c 9 must be a whole number. Tohuxga.

Geological Problems.

The conclusions based upon the facts of geology as to the age of our planet and the time of man's appearance on its surface, are advanced with all the authority of scientific approval, and yet it must be apparent to the merest tyro that many of those conclu sions are arrived at by most unscientific methods. The recent violent disturbances in the Straits of Sunda, which have had the effect of completely changing the aspect of the earth's crust in that neighbourhood, should suggest to the observer that similar and in all probability more violent disburb ances in the earlier stages of the world's history, might altogether upset the calculations of the modern geologist, working on hard and fast lines. Of these pre-historic and pre-Adamite con vulsions we can have little conception,-save from the analogy of the present. We are witnessing now the natural processes which shall go to make the geology of the future, and it is reasonable to suppose that the effects which we observe from these pro cesses would also follow the earlier disturb ances. At Sunda, it is stated that several thousands of lives have been lost, and many of these people were doubtless washed into the sea, where their bodies, embedded in the sand, will form part of a geological for mation. At the great earthquake of Lisbon, some 40,000 people were not only engulfed in the sea, but were in addition swallowed up in the earth—not a single body having i-eached the surface of the water after being swept away by a tidal wave. Who knows in what strata these masses of human remains have been embedded, or what deductions miVht be drawn from their discovery by some geologist of the distant future ? A similar question arises in considering the story of the locomotive which ran through a broken bridge on the Kansas Pacific Railway across Kiowa Creek several years ago, sinking in to the mud at the bottom, and has never since been heard from,' though repeated efforts have been made by digging and boring to recover so valuable n property. The bottom is a quicksand, and even quicksands have limits, and it seems very singular that the longest boring rod has failed to find any trace of the sunken engine. By-and-by the silent, mysterious operations will drain the quicksand and harden it into rock ; and then, long after the Kansas Pacific Road has been forgotten, and the Kiowa Creek has vanished from the map, some future scientist will discover a curious piece of mechanism, undoubtedly the work of human hands, lying under so many hundred feet of undisturbed sandstone, and will use the fact as a basis for calculating how many million years old the human race must be. Thus history will repeat itself, as it has often done and will continue to do.

HUMOUROUS CLIPPINGS.

An editor wrote a headline, "A Horrible Blunder," to go over a railroad accident; but though it was the printer's fault that it got over an account of a wedding, the editor was the man thrashed all the same.

A bride complained to her husband that she had been too busy all day to get off her feet once, and that unhappy man, who had already discovered several make-ups in her construction, exclaimed in amazement. " Great heavens ! do they come off, too ?"

Wasn't it rough on Clara, just as she was telling Frederic at lunch how ethereal her appetite was, to have the cook bawl out: "Say ! will yer have yer biled pork and beans now, or wait till yer feller's gone ?" A man from a neighbouring town wished one of our banks to take his note a short time ago. The directors said they would cash the note if his brother would endorse it. The next day in came the man with his brother's signature on the note. The bank took it and paid the money. "When the note became due the signer did not pay it, and the bank notified the brother. That jentleman came into the counting-house in amazement and asked, "What have you against me?" "Didn't you endorse a note for your brother?" asked the cashier. "Not that I know of," replied the man. " Isn't this your signature ?" then demanded the bank official, producing the note. The man looked at his name written on the paper, and rubbed his eyes. " Yes," said he, " that's my signature, sure; but I should think he might have allowed me to write it!" He paid the note. The Duke of York once remarked to Colonel W., at the mess of the 11th Rogi- Went, that the Colonel was uncommonly and, although a younger man than *«s Royal Highness, he stood moro in need ot a wig. The Colonel, who had been of ysry long standing in the sorvice, and wnoee promotion had been by no means H * V lnf°™ed His Royal Highness ™at t""s baldness could be very easily ac wunted for. "In what manner ?" asked TJrj Highness, rather eagerly. To offln Col °nel W. replied, "By junior officers stepping over my head." The Duke tralW J? 1?08^ wi-h the reply that the 3ayß^tert°nel obtainod 'promotion a few

Molly's Aunt.

'• You have been to me like a sister, Cleo, though you are only my brother's widow. "You are a good woman, if ever one lived. I leave my child to your care, in the full con fidence that you will never let her know the lack of father or mother. It is scarcely pos sible that she has not inherited from me some seeds of my fatal disease, and there fore I have made my will in such a manner that in case of her death before she is twenty tho property shall come to you." Thus said Oliver Brant, as ho lay dying of consumption.

"Papa ! I want my papa !" cried a wee, .childish voice ; and Dolly Brant, breaking from tho hold of her nurse, sprang into the sick-room, darted like^a swallow under the extended hands of her Aunt Cleo, and leaped upon the bed. " Papa, Marjory says you are going away to leave me. It is not true, is it ? You never could be so cruel as to go anywhere without me!" she cried, clinging with both arms to the dying man. He kissed her fondly, and would not let his sister-in-law take her away. "Leave her," he said; "it will not be for long now." The child nestled down beside him con tentedly, and' peeped out at her Aunt Cleo with dark, defiant eyes.

She was a soft, white creature, not more than four years old, with Bossy curls, and dimpled all over.

It was odd that she should not be fond of her Aunt Cleo, who was so fond of her.

" I hate Aunt Cleo, and I won't stay with her. I will go with you, papa," whispered the small, spoiled creature in that dying ear.

The fading- eyes turned upon Cleo Brant.

" You will be a mother to her ? Promise me,"he said, with a strange misgiving assailing him at this last hour. "I promise," answered Madame Cleo, solemnly.

She may have meant to try, but at least she liked Dolly as little as Dolly liked her. She was left sole guardian of the child. All Oliver Brant's large fortune would come to her if Dolly died before she was twenty, and she had not a penny of her own. Oliver Brant had not a living blood rela tive to leave his darling in charge of, and he believed in Cleo. She had taken care that he should.

Dolly did not like her, but that was only a baby's foolishness, he reasoned.

It was rather sad. The. little one shrank from her aunt with such an unconquerable aversion.

" You don't like me either, Aunt Cleo. What makes you pretend you do?" she used tosay, with childish boldness. "I can see it in your eyes." " How strangely you talk, Dolly,"madame would sigh, with the long black lashea drooping over her angiy eyes. As Dolly Brant grew older her dislike of her aunt did not lessen.

" She is always pretending to think lam .sick, when she knows better. I believe she wants me to be ill," she said to her old nurse, a faithful woman, whom Madame Cleo would have liked to'get rid'of, but could not discharge because Oliver Brant's will provided for her to stay as her nursling wanted her, if she chose.

" §he can't insult me," old Marjory said, proudly, "She'd like to drive me away, but I won't go."

Dolly's education was all carried on under her aunt's eye at Brant House. She had masters for this, and mistresses for that, and each and all were duly cautioned not to overtax Miss Brant, her health was so delicate.

"Stuff!" Dolly would cry, indignantly "I'm not delicate."

But her aunt only smiled pitifully at her, and murmured in an audible aside : " Such spirits ! So liko her poor, dear lather in everything."

"A most devoted woman, and a fearfully wayward girl!" sighed outsiders. "The seeds of her father's disease are in her, and only her Aunt Cleo's devotion and watch fulness have kept them from developing so long." "If she keeps on," said Dolly, drearily, to her old nurse, "she will drive me into my grave in spite of myself." " I believe it," muttered Marjory. When Dolly was only seventeen, she be came by the merest accident acquainted with a very nice and handsome young man, who wanted to marry her.

Aunt Cleo did not approve of youn" men, handsome or otherwise.

"You are too young to marry," she said, which was very true. "If you live till you are twenty, you may marry whom you like ; but not till then."

" I am not too young to be engaged, if I am to marry, and Fred will wait for me." declared Dolly.

" She thinks I won't live till I'm twenty, but 1 will," she whispered to her lover.

Business called Fred abroad for two years. He wanted to take Dolly with him ; but it might not be, so they parted hopefully. The two years passed, but did not bring

"He has fallen in love with some other woman," suggested Aunt Cleo. But Dolly only answered her with a look of scorn.

"Perhaps he is dead," said Aunt Cleo, and Dolly shuddered with deadly fear that it might be so.

That night there was an awful storm. Brant House was near the sea, and the fancy seized Dolly that Fred might be on the sea in that storm. At midnight they heard guns fired, as of a ship in distress. Out of her warm bed started Dolly, out into the storm, wild with fright. It was a wrecked ship, but every soul was saved, and Fred was not amon« them. From that night Dolly's bright head drooped. "

She bad come in, wot through, chilled to the bone.

She began to cough. "Just like her father," Aunt Cleo said. She got a flame in her cheeks. " Just Hkeherfatheragain," cried Aunt Cleo. " You will see. She will go just like her father."

" The sooner the better," thought Dolly, and turned her sweet face to the wall.

" She shan't I" muttered Nurse Marjory, "not as long as I can work to hinder it." Then, with many misgivings, the old woman, who had never been twenty miles from home in her life, donned her best bon net and cloak and set forth. .

Fred Rayne's father lived a long way off, but she was going there.

" Tom-fool's errand like enough, but I'll try it for the child's sake," she muttered, and went.

Dolly's doctor was an old fogy after Mad ame Cleo's own heart. He dosed and sighed, and shook his head, then shook his Tiead, and sighed, and dosed. Dolly did not care what he did. She took whatever he gave her. But her cough got no better, and her pretty cheeks grew thinner and redder. "Aren't you glad I really am sick at last, Aunt Cleo?" she asked, with a Hash of the old pervereeness. "Dear Dolly, you know better than that," sighed madame, with her handkerchief to her eyes. One night when Marjory had been away about a week, old Doctor Fogy came a little earlier than usual. He was all muffled and bundled, as if the ■weather had been December instead of June.

Aunt Cleo was not there. Dolly paid no attention to him.

" Umph, humph !" he grunted, sitting down by the bed, and taking Dolly's little wrist in his hand ; " that last medicine did the business. I thought it would. You're better, child. Humph ! I should think so. Let me see your tongue ; let me see your eyes."

Dolly looked and screamed : "Oh Fred, is it you ? I thought you were dead !" and fainted.

She came to in Fred's arms.

'' Madame Cleo sent me a letter telling me you were going tomarrysome one else," he said, " and I was fool enough to believe it till Marjory came and told mo better."

■'It was a lie! I would rather marry you than a king I" cried Dolly ; " and she knows it!"

" Well, you won't die now, Dolly, will you ?" said Fred.

" Do I look like it ?" asked Dolly, lifting her smiling;, happy face. " Throw the medicine all out of the window, Marjory. I believe it was that was making me sick." The cough went away in a week ; the flush vanished. Dolly was a well woman. Madame Cleo came to her the day bofore the wedding. Her eyes were red. " You don't like me, Dolly ;.you never did," she said (not a word about that wicked letter to Fred); "so I am going away. I haven't a cent of my own, and I suppose I shall starve; but that don't matter."

" I would have liked you if I could, Aunt Cleo," said the girl, frankly, "and I want you to have Brownside Farm and three hundred a year. The papers are all made out."

Aunt Cloo stared. She could not believe her ears.

" You don't mean that you are going to be friends with me ?'.' she cried.

" I shall never bo your enemy, Aunt Cleo," said Dolly, slowly, "and I forgive you for writing that letter to Fred. That is what I mean."

To-day Aunt Cleo says to all who will listen :

" My niece owes her good health to my watchful care in her early years. She feels it. That is why she gave me Brownside Farm."

But they do not visit much. Dolly goes sometimes, and Aunt Cleo returns the favour. She is very glad to let well enough alone.

A Mile a Minute on a Bicycle.

Our mine, the Spondulix, was the highest on the range. It was 2,G70 feet above Silver Brick station, and nine miles distant from the village. From the works up to the mines there was a broad, hard smooth road used for carting ore down from the mines and hauling supplies up. The average grade down the mountain was 300 feet to the mile ; in some places it was con siderably steeper, and at intervals almost level. The road was made partly on the bare rock and wound up a narrow gulch ; presently it climbed outside the chasm, and here at several places the road-bed had been blasted out of the solid rock, or cut into the perpendicular side of the mountain ; but everywhere the road was almost as smooth and hard as a floor. Knowing that a loose stone might cost the lives of both teamster and team, where sometimes the brakes would not entirely check the descent of an ore waggon, until one of the nearly level places had been reached, the teamsters were careful to keep the surface of the road clean and smooth.

By constant practice I managed at last to ride my 52-inch "University" roadster up the whole slope to the Spondulix, of course resting at levels, but my chief delight was the coasting down again ; it required skill a good deal of nerve, and a (inn grasp of the brake.

One evening an accident occurred to one of those engaged at the mine. I instantly got out mybicycle, explaining that I could go swifter than a horse down the slope. In a few minutes I had on my riding-suit and was off.

The night was clear and crisp ; the full moon, except in a few curves, shone directly into the gulch, lighting up the road. Leaning well back, with my legs over the handles, and a firm finger on the brake, I allowed the wheel to glide down the first long slope at a speed which I had never dared to venture before. Finding the motion safe, I allowed the machine to run faster, and still faster. Over the first level I shot like an arrow. Down the next slope I seemed to slide upon the rushing wind. Then I turned a curve and ran into the shadow of the mountain upon the next level. Knowing every inch of the road, however, I did not slacken speed, except very slightly. As I flew over the top of the next slope, a steep plunge of nearly half a mile, another curve completely shut out the moon, making the road almost as dark as a pocket. Here I put down the brake hard, and checked my speed materially. Still I knew the road so well that I had no fear. But just as I was upon the steepest plunge of the slope Clink ! Something flew from the machine like a bullet. Instantly the wheel darted forward like the rush of a frightened bird, while the brake lever came home to the steering bar under my finger. The brake had broken off short in the elbow !

There was nothing to check the machine, which was running away with me, with over five miles of mountain grade before me. and the chance of meeting a team at any moment in the dark. I might have leaped backward off the machine at the instant of the break, but five seconds afterwards it was too late. To attempt to dismount would be certain death. There was nothing to do but to stick to the saddle, and take my chances.

Within thirty seconds the machine had acquired a velocity never before experienced by mortal rider. The sensation was lik6 that of falling through the air. The rush of theatmosphere past me waslikeafearfulgale. The wheel no longer felt the inequalities of the road. It seemed to glide smoothly over a perfect plane. I felt no sense of shocks from pebbles, or hollows, or protuberances. In fact, I believe that there were many places, especially when I shot over the brow of a steeper incline, where the whole machine took a flying hop, or rather a long, skimmering glide through the air, without touching the surface of the road. It was lucky that I had practised so much coasting down this very road, and that I knew every inch of it so thoroughly. Going at that amazing speed, leaning far back in the saddle, the steering was something novel and peculiar. The speed gave the wheel such an obstinate disposition to keep on a straight line, that I could not have turned a short curve if I had tried. A very little too much turning of the steering-bar would have wrenched it instantly from my hands, and smashed the wheel to fragments. But my practice had taught me the neces sity of making my curves lung and easy when coasting at great speed; and by instinct my grasp upon the steering-bar was that of desperation, both my arms being kept as firm, yet flexible, as spring steel.

When the accident happened, I. was just entering a dark curve in the shadow of the mountain. The wall on my right appeared a dark, .almost invisible brown,- while the chasm on my left was of an inky blackness. As I rounded the hollow of the curve, I could seethe moonlight shining far ahead on the point of the elbow which I must turn

where the road was channelled into tho wall. A I approached it I had the sense and nerve to run on the outer side of the road, close to the edge of the canon, "thus giving myself as broad a turn as possible. 1 found by the track of the wheel afterwards that at the sharpest turn I had actually ridden within three inches of the extreme edge for several rods, where, if I had been going at a less fearful speed, tho wheel would certainly have slipped over the edge, and carried me down a fall of 1,000 feet.

Safely past this, the worst point, the re maining curves were easy. Thus far there had been no time to think. My actions were more instinctive than reasoning. My mind was a mild, confused whirl of sensa tions and fears.

But now, as I shot down tho last steep incline, suddenly I experienced a terrible mental shook. It was caused by hearing the tinkle of a bell far below, and seeing the spark of a lantern, such as the mine teamsters carry in front of their waggons. There was a team, perhaps a train of teams, coming up the road ! In a few seconds I should be upon them. The shock made me think, and that clearly. If the teamster was walking beside his team, ho would be on the inside, next to the, mountain wall, and the team would be in the middle of tho road. If he was riding, the team would be kept near the mountain wall, and at a safe distance from the outer edge of the .track. Either way, my best chance was to pass on the outside. As I approached, theiefore, I ran close to the outside edge of the track, and flew by in safety, hearing the teamster shout as I did so. Here it was lucky that I was going at such great speed, for tho team ster saw the red light of my lantern when I was ncarly'a mile distant, and recognising it, he started his team toward the outer edge of the road, so.as to give me tho safest passage on the inside ; but I was upon and past him before the team could be driven over, otherwise I should havo surely ran into them.

And now the wheel ran along the level at the bottom of the mountain ; still my frightful velocity did not perceptibly dimin ish. I ran out past the works, and into and along the village street. Luckily tho street was covered thinly with sand—not enough to make it bad riding, but sufficient to gradually stop a coasting wheel. My speed slackened perceptibly. Still I ran nearly through the village, and then managed to turn a broad corner and run up the slope of a side street, which finally checked my speed so that I ventured to drop my feet cautiously and take the pedals, after touching them as jthey came up for a number of revolutions, to help to check the machine.

And so I finally .stopped and leaped to the ground exactly in front of Dr. Camoron's house.

On mounting at the mine-house, I had looked at my watch, after a habit I had, and now, from the same habit, I looked at it again. I was not astonished to find that I had made the nine miles from the mine to the doctor's in a few seconds less than thirteen minutes. Allow ing six and a quarter for the first two miles before the brake gave way, and I must have made the last seven miles in less than six and three-quarter minutes. I firmly believe that I covered seven miles in less than six. and a half minutes, incredible as such speed seems.

A Wonderful Hen Hunt.

One of the leading professors in Oxford hates to have the subject of hens mentioned, in his presence— especially black hens ; and the reason of it is this : It was on a fine Sunday afternoon in summer, a good many years ago, that the Professor in question— who is a Doctor of Divinity, and who even then was one of the best known figures in the University, enjoying a reputation for prodigious erudition—was sunning himself in the High street. Now, the High street in Oxford on a fiuo Sunday afternoon toward the end of the summer term, when the town is tilled with visitors who have come up to see Commemoration, is one of the most crowded and fashionable thoroughfares to be found in all England ; and as the doctor threaded his way through the well-dressed throng, his dignified air bespoke a conscious ness of uncommon merit, and of merit not nnrecognised by the world, while his face shone withamixtureofprideand benevolence, such as became so great a man in so goodly a company. It so chanced, however, that a rampant gust of wind—which ought never to have allowed to roam about on such a sunny day—came romping up the street, stirring up swirls of dust, and fluttering the ladies' ribbons as it came ; and, whether it was the conspicuous gloss upon the Professor's hat that caught the wind's eye (for the wind has an eye, or how could mariners sail in it V), or whether it was the baldness of the Professor's head made his hat slide off more easily,is uncertain, but certain it is that his was the only hat that blew off' in all the crowd.

Naturally the Professor went off after his hat; but everyone knows what a lot of trouble Mr Pickwick had to catch his hat when it blew off, and with all his erudition the Professor was not unlike Mr Pickwick in figure ; so, instead of his having caught his hat, the latter had obtained a commanding lead before it blew bump up against the gate-post of a stable yard. Now was the Professor's opportunity, for the hat was lying dead beat up against the gate. But it so chanced that a solitary hen—a black one—was taking an afternoon stroll just in side the yard, and, with that perversity which has caused black hens to be regarded by the superstitious of all ages as birds of evil omen, was so frightened by the noise the hat made knocking against the wooden gate that she scuttled out into the street.. As soon as she got into the street, the con fusion at finding herself among so many people sent her in a flurry of dust and feathers—for hens always run the wrong way—out into the road. Once in the road, she met the Professor, and immediately concluding (in spite of his clerical attire) that he was there to hunt her, away she: went down the road in front of him. Nor was her surmise as to his intentions so ill founded as is common with the pnnics of hens, for the Professor is terribly short- lighted, and what with the dust and the heat and the excitement of the chase, he never detected the fraud that was being - palmed off upon him, but started off after, the hen as blithely as he had heretofore hunted his hat. But though a hat is hard to catch, a hen is worse ; and any healthy fowl nomine diqna can easily outrun a Doctor of Divinity. So down the High street, with the stately throng of fashionable folk all agape on either hand, went this worse than Gilpin race; and while the hen kicked up the dust and the Professor'sjbald head went flashingin thesun, the undergraduates bent out of their windows on each side of the road and cheered pursuer and pursued, and laid long odds upon the hen. And in all probability the Professor would have hunted that hen till sundown had not a carriage come up the road to meet them, when, to his horror, he saw his hat—his well-behaved clerical hat, that had sat quietly on his head every Sunday for the last two months —take wings and fly clucking over the crowded sidewalk to settle on a wall. And to this day the professor hates the man who talks to him of hens. •'

STAR SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT, SEPTEMBER 15, 188 S.

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