Reginald de M., Esq., Hautonbank Hall,
Billberryshire."

I verily believe the family are not suited
to this day! They will, indeed, have to spend
a large sum in advertisements, before they
succeed in finding so admirable a Proteus in
Plush as Charles.

How much of my freedom, and of the
premature possession of my fortune, I owed to the
diplomacy of the " shallow-hearted cousin," I
have yet to learn. My opinion at present is,
that she was my good genius throughout. I
shall know all about it some of these days, I
hope and trust; for now I have got thus far, I
don't mind informing the reader— in confidence
—that I have " intentions" in that quarter.

THE MIGHTY MAGICIAN.

HE stood upon the summit of a mount,
  Waving a wand above his head uplifted;
And smote the ground, whence gushed, as from a fount,
  A sparkling stream, with magic virtues gifted.

It fill'd the air with music as it leapt,
  Merrily bounding over hill and hollow;
And swiftly to the distant plain it swept,
  Gurgling a challenge to the birds to follow.

Onward and onward, parting as it ran
  A thousand streamlets from the parent river,
It roll'd among the farthest haunts of man,
  Wooing the sunlight on its breast to quiver.

Where'er it flow'd, it fed the desert earth
  With wholesome aliment, its seeds to nourish;
Quickening its treasures into rapid birth,
  And bidding golden harvests spring and flourish.

Fair thriving cities rising on its banks,
  Gather'd the noble, and enrich'd the humble;
Throng'd with the happy in their various ranks,
  They rear'd proud domes that ages scarce could
             crumble.

The Great Magician from his lofty height
  Beheld the world, with boundless plenty teeming,
And his eye kindled with a sense of might,
  Proudly, yet softly, at the prospect of gleaming.

"I've wrought," he cried, "rich blessings for mankind;
  I've thrilled with happiness the hearts of mourners;
And Fame will waft upon her wings of wind
  The deeds of PEACE to earth's remotest corners!"

ZOOLOGICAL STORIES

TRAVELLERS' tales have a peculiar
reputation for the marvellous, and many travellers
have been accused of fiction. Whether zoologists'
tales are in all cases to be trusted, we
have, now and then, a doubt. They are true
in the main; but sometimes, possibly, the
first narrator of an unusually good story has
judiciously abstained from sifting it; and once
in the Zoological Story-Book, the pleasant tale
has stood on its own merits and been handled
tenderly, as is the way with ornaments; no
man too roughly scratching at them to find
out of what materials they are composed.
The pleasant books of Mr. Broderip and Mr.
E. P. Thomson— "The Note-Book of a
Naturalist,' and "The Passions of Animals"
—have lately overwhelmed us with good stories
about animals; nine in ten true, undoubtedly
and one in ten, perhaps, almost too good to
be true. Having lately read these books, and,
moreover, the '' Zoological Recreations,"
published some time ago, by Mr. Broderip, we
find our brains so clogged with anecdotes of
animals, that we are compelled to let a few
of them flow out, lest we be stupefied by a
congestion.

Of course we accept legends as legends.
It was once believed of crocodiles, that, after
they had eaten a man comfortably, and left
only his skull, at the sweet kernel of which—
the brain—they could not get, their tears
were shed over the bone until they softened it,
and so the skull was opened, and the brain
devoured. When that is told us as a legend,
we say, certainly, it was a very quaint thing
to believe of the tears of crocodiles. Then,
travellers' tales of the proverbial kind are
next of kin to legends. Here is a very
marvellous one, which Mr. Broderip tells half-
incredulously. Let us be bold and say that
we believe it. It is this. An Indian, having
tamed a rattlesnake, carried it about in a box
with him, and called it his great father. M.
Pinnisance met with him as he was starting
for his winter hunt, and saw him open the
box-door and give the snake his liberty, telling
it to be sure and come back to meet him,
when he returned to the same spot next May.
It was then October. M. Pinnisance laughed
at the man, who immediately saw his way
clearly to a speculation in rum, and betted
two gallons that his snake would keep the
appointment. The wager was made; the
second week in May arrived; the Indian and
the Frenchman were on the appointed spot.
The great father was absent, and the Indian,
having lost his wager, offered to repeat it,
doubled, if the snake did not return within
the next two days. That wager the Frenchman
took and lost. The snake, who (had he
speech) might have apologised for being
rather behind his time, appeared, and crawled
into his box. We believe this. Rattlesnakes
are teachable; and, in this instance, the keeping
of the appointment seems to us only an apparent
wonder. Snakes are not given to travel
in the winter, and the Indian's father, turned
out of the box, made himself snug at no great
distance from the place of his ejectment.
Winter over, the Indian came back. His
great father may have been dining heartily,
and indisposed to stir; but, as he grew
more brisk, the accustomed invocation of his
little son became effectual, and brought the
tame snake to the box as usual.

Mr. Thomson classifies his tales of Animals
according to the traits of character which
they evince. Spiders have ears for music.
Disjonval— the authorities we transfer from
our accessible friends and chroniclers, Mr.
Broderip or Mr. Thomson— Disjonval knew a