There were only twelve persons in the whole company.
SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.
Joseph Battaglia, a surgeon of Ponte Bosio, relates the following case: Don. G. Maria Bertholi, a priest of Mount Valerius, went to the fair of Filetto, and afterwards visited a relation in Fenilo, where he intended to pass the night. Before retiring to rest, he was left reading his breviary; when, shortly afterwards, the family were alarmed by his loud cries and a strange noise in his chamber. On opening the door, he was lying prostrate on the floor, and surrounded by flickering flames. Battaglia was immediately sent for, and on his arrival the unfortunate man was found in a most deplorable state. The integuments of the arms and the back were either consumed or detached in hanging flaps. The sufferer was sufficiently sensible to give an account of himself. He said that he felt, all of a sudden, as if his arm had received a violent blow from a club, and at the same time he saw scintillations of fire rising from his shirt-sleeves, which were consumed without having burned the wrists; a handkerchief, which he had tied round his shoulders, between the shirt and the skin, was intact. His drawers were also sound; but, strange to say, his silk skull-cap was burnt while his hair bore no marks of combustion. The unfortunate man only survived the event four days. The circumstances which attended this case would seem to warrant the conclusion that the electric fluid was the chief agent in the combustion.
SHOOTING FISH.
HORNED CHÆTODON.
Our shores have produced a few specimens of a richly-coloured fish called Ray's Sea Bream (Brama Rayi), interesting because it represents a family, almost confined to the tropical seas, of very singular forms and habits. The family is named Chætodontidæ, from the principal genus in it. They are very high perpendicularly, but thin and flattened sidewise; the mouth in some projects into a sort of snout, the fins are frequently much elevated, and send off long filaments. They are generally adorned with highly-contrasted colours, which run in perpendicular bands. They are often called scaly-finned fishes, because the dorsal and anal are clothed, at least in part, with scales, so as not to be distinguished from the body. The tubular snout of some, as of a little species which we here represent, is applied to an extraordinary use, that of shooting flies! The fish approaches under a fly which it has discovered, resting on a leaf or twig, a few feet above the water, taking care not to alarm it by too sudden a motion; then, projecting the tip of its beak from the surface, it shoots a single drop at the insect with so clever an aim, as very rarely to miss it, when it falls into the water and is devoured. Being common in the Indian seas, it is often kept by the Chinese in vases, as we keep golden-fish, for the amusement of witnessing this feat. A fly is fastened at some distance, at which the fish shoots, but, disappointed of course, and wondering that its prey does not fall, it goes on to repeat the discharge for many times in succession, without seeming to take in a fresh stock of ammunition, and scarcely ever missing the mark, though at a distance of three or four feet.
EXTRAORDINARY EARTHQUAKES.
Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August 1772, a remarkable luminous cloud enveloping its top aroused them from their security. But it was too late; for at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared, with the forty villages and most of the inhabitants, over a space fifteen miles long and six broad. Still more extraordinary, the most remarkable on record was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles, and in another seven hundred and twenty miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles that houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and vessels were forced through with difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and, finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, only twenty-six survived the catastrophe.