Notes and Queries, Number 36, July 6, 1850 | Page 5

gardener to one of the maids, 'the gauger's
_fie_;' by which word the common people express those violent spirits
which they think a presage of death."--_Guy Mannering_, chap. 9.
6. "H.W.L." said: "I believe the bodies of the four persons seen by the
jury, were those of G.B., W.B., J.B., and T.B. On Friday night they
were all very merry, and Mrs. B. said she feared something would
happen before they went to bed, because they were so
happy."--_Evidence given at inquest on bodies of four persons killed by
explosion of firework-manufactory in Bermondsey_, Friday, Oct. 12,
1849. See _Times_, Oct. 17, 1849.
Nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, are evidently notices of the Belief; Nos. 3, 4, are "what
you will." Many of your correspondents may be able to supply earlier
and more curious illustrations.
C. FORBES
June 19.
* * * * *
THE HYDRO-INCUBATOR.
Most, if not all, of your readers have heard of the newly-invented
machine for hatching and rearing in chickens, without the maternal aid
of the hen; probably many of them have paid a visit (and a _shilling_)
at No. 4. Leicester Square, where the incubator is to be seen in full
operation. The following extract will, therefore, be acceptable, as it
tends to show the truth of the inspired writer's words, "There is no new
thing under the sun:"--

"Therefore ... it were well we made our remarks in some creatures, that
might be continually in our power, to observe in them the course of
nature, every day and hour. Sir _John Heydon_, the Lieutenant of his
Majesties Ordnance (that generous and knowing gentleman and
consummate souldier, both in theory and practice) was the first that
instructed me how to do this, by means of a furnace, so made as to
imitate the warmth of a sitting hen. In which you may lay several eggs
to hatch and by breaking them at several ages, you may distinctly
observe every hourly mutation in them, if you please. The first will be,
that on one side you shall find a great resplendent clearness in the white.
After a while, a little spot of red matter, like blood will appear in the
midst of that clearness, fast'ned to the yolk, which will have a motion
of opening and shutting, so as sometimes you will see it, and straight
again it will vanish from your sight, and indeed, at first it is so little that
you cannot see it, but by the motion of it; for at every pulse, as it opens
you may see it, and immediately again it shuts, in such sort as it is not
to be discerned. From this red speck, after a while, there will stream out
a number of little (almost imperceptible) red veins. At the end of some
of which, in time, there will be gathered together a knot of matter,
which by little and little will take the form of a head and you will, ere
long, begin to discern eyes and a beak in it. All this while the first red
spot of blood grows bigger and solider, till at length it becomes {85} a
fleshy substance, and, by its figure, may easily be discern'd to be the
heart; which as yet hath no other inclosure but the substance of the egg.
But by little and little, the rest of the body of an animal is framed out of
those red veins which stream out all about from the heart. And in
process of time, that body encloses the heart within it by the chest,
which grows over on both sides, and in the end meets and closes itself
fast together. After which this little creature soon fills the shell, by
converting into several parts of itself all the substance of the egg; and
then growing weary of so strait a habitation, it breaks prison and comes
out a perfectly formed chicken."--Sir Kenelm Digby's _Treatise of
Bodies_, Ch. xxiv. p. 274. ed. 1669.
Could Sir Kenelm return to the scenes of this upper world, and pay a
visit to Mr. Cantelo's machine, his shade might say with truthfulness,
what Horace Smith's mummy answered to his questioner,--

"--We men of yore Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention."
The operations of the two machines appear to be precisely the same:
the only difference being the Sir Kenelm's was an experimental one,
made for the purpose of investigating the process of nature; while
Cantelo's, in accordance with "the spirit of the iron time," is a practical
one, made for the purposes of utility and profit. Sir Kenelm's Treatise
appears to have been first published in the year 1644.
HENRY KERSLEY.
Corpus Christi Hall, Maidstone.
* * * * *
ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD "PARLIAMENT."
It has been observed by a learned