QUERIES IN NATURAL HISTORY.

I.

ARE Fish Deaf as well as Dumb?

Certainly not; or why should there be a picture in a certain Catholic Church of an Apostle preaching to a scaly congregation, with their heads and shoulders attentively lifted out of the water? Besides, Izaak Walton gives an instance of Carp which were regularly collected at feeding time, like human creatures, by the sound of a dinner-bell. It is established then that they hear with their outward ears; but do they do it with understanding? Passing over as fabulous the fishes of four colours in the Arabian

The

Nights, which heard and comprehended the Fairy's address to them, and even answered it from the pan -I think it may be predicated of a Brill. A few days back I saw a fish of this description offered for sale at the door of the house opposite to my own."Will you buy a fine Brill, Ma'am-quite freshonly caught this morning-leaping alive?" Brill on the contrary lay, dab, on the board, as "stale, flat, and unprofitable," as a fish could look. "Why no-not to-day," was the answer of Mrs. Cook. The board was caught up again, and with the woman had just cleared the door, when, behold! the Brill threw as much of a somerset as any fish out of water could be expected to perform. Could a Christiansupposing we bought and boiled Christians and ate them with anchovy sauce-could a Christian have behaved more brilliantly under such an emergency?

II.

Can a Fly read in a book?

"Yes," answers a Punster; "all the fly-leaf." But the question is intended seriously.

Can the

insect read-read like a child that runs-read like a reader in a printing-office? Not to enumerate the quantity of Fugitive-or flying-Poems, the Flying Post, and other works which seem expressly addressed to a Blue Bottle's perusal, I flatter myself that the question in question can he provided with a settler. I happened to be reading one day near the open window, when a Fly came and settled on the open page; it then began to run backward and forward along the lines in such a very suspicious manner, as to induce me to watch its motions. And very curious they were! The book was the Eccentric Mirror, and the chapter an account of one Mr. Joseph Capper, a whimsical character, who used to live at the Horns at Kennington. We-for I must include the other had read on very comfortably through several sentences, till coming to the mention of a strong flykilling propensity, which procured for Mr. Capper the nickname of Domitian-judge of my astonishment when I saw the insect jump up as if it had burnt its feet and fly rapidly away! The following little anecdote appears to confirm my theory. When I