The Mirror, 1828.07.05, issue No. 321 | Page 9

elegantly along the undulations of the plain, at half pistol-shot from each other, like skirmishers. The young are easily domesticated, and soon become attached to those who caress them; but they are troublesome inmates; for, stalking about the house, they will, when full grown, swallow coin, shirt-pins, and every small article of metal within reach. Their usual food, in a wild state, is seeds, herbage, and insects; the flesh is a reddish brown, and if young, not of bad flavour. A great many eggs are laid in the same nest. Some accounts exonerate the ostrich from being the most stupid bird in the creation. This has been proved by the experiment of taking an egg away, or by putting one in addition. In either case she destroys the whole by smashing them with her feet. Although she does not attend to secrecy, in selecting a situation for her nest, she will forsake it if the eggs have been handled. It is also said that she rolls a few eggs thirty yards distant from the nest, and cracks the shells, which, by the time her young come forth, being filled with maggots, and covered with insects, form the first repast of her infant brood. The male bird is said to take upon himself the rearing of the young. If two cock-birds meet, each with a family, they fight for the supremacy over both; for which reason an ostrich has sometimes under his tutelage broods of different ages.--_Mem. Gen. Miller._
Dr. Kitchiner recommends a gentleman who has a mind to carry the arrangement of his clothes to a nicety, to have the shelves of his wardrobe numbered 30, 40, 50, and 60, and according to the degree of cold pointed to by his thermometer, to wear a corresponding defence against it.
Dr. Harwood fed two pointers; one he suffered to sleep after dinner, another he forced to take exercise. In the stomach of the one who had been quiet and asleep, all the food was digested; in the stomach of the other, that process was hardly begun.
SIR WALTER'S LAST.
At page 354 of our last vol., the reader will find an eloquent description of Perth, from the Wicks of Beglie, quoted from St. Valentine's Eve. This turns out to be a topographical blunder, for the "fair city" cannot be seen at all from the said Wicks, whereas the author has described it as the best point of view. As our readers have long since enjoyed the description, we shall doubtless be pardoned for thus noticing the mistake.
TELEGRAPHS.
The system of telegraphs has arrived at such perfection in the presidency of Bombay, that a communication may be made through a line of 500 miles in eight minutes.--_Weekly Rev._
One of the drawing-room critics who uphold the literature of lords and ladies, sums up the merits of fashionable novel-writing as follows:--"After all, it is something to scrutinize lords and ladies, recline on satin sofas, eat off silver dishes--whose nomenclature is the glory of _l'artiste_--though only in a book."
MAHOGANY.
The largest and finest log of mahogany ever imported into this country has been recently sold by auction at the docks in Liverpool. It was purchased for 378l., and afterwards sold for 525l., and if it open well, it is supposed to be worth 1,000l. If sawed into veneers, it is computed that the cost of labour in the process will be 750l. The weight on the king's beam is six tons thirteen hundred weight.
Dugald Stewart, the celebrated metaphysician, of whom Scotland has just reason to be proud, died a short time since at Edinburgh, at the age of seventy-five. He recently published two volumes, of which a distinguished gentleman in Edinburgh thus speaks:--"June 16. Dugald Stewart is to be buried to-morrow. A great light is gone out, or rather gone down,--for its glory will long be in the sky, though its orb be no more visible above the horizon. He corrected his last two volumes with his own hand within these three months. What philosopher, especially palsy-stricken ten years ago,--could ring in better. Glorious fellow! I hear his splendid sentences and exquisite voice sounding in mine ear at the distance of nearly thirty winters. His peculiar merit was the purity and loftiness of his moral taste. For about forty years he raised the standard of thought and feeling among successive generations of young men, to a range it would never otherwise have attained."
OLD AND NEW VAUXHALL.
Of old, a half-crown at the door, and the price of such comestibles as were devoured, were grumbled at as tax enough; but now the account stands in a fairer form, because you are charged distinctly for every item, so that you know what you are paying for, and may choose or reject, as you think fit. Thus Mr. Bull, from Aldgate, with Mrs. Bull, and