Spiders.
A correspondent of London's Magazine of Natural History says, that he lately amused himself for more than an hour in observing the proceedings of a little spider, whose bag of eggs had been removed and restored!
Light of the Sea.
Its appearance previous to a storm is a very old observation among sailors. It is, however without foundation, as it is to be seen, more or less, all the year round in the Carribean sea, where there are no storms but in the hurricane months. In the hand it has a kind of mucous feel.—Mag. Nat. Hist.
Woodpeckers.
A specimen of the least woodpecker was lately shot near Newcastle; and another has since been heard and seen near Coventry. Its noise resembles that made by the boring of a large auger through the hardest wood; whence the country people sometimes call the bird "the pump-borer."—Ibid.
The Tea Shrub
Has been naturalized in Java with complete success; so that, sooner or later, the Chinese monopoly will come to an end.
Floating Island.
From the earliest times, there are to be found in authors, notices of the singular geological phenomena of floating islands. Pliny tells us of the floating islands of the Lago de Bassanello, near Rome; in Loch Lomond, in Scotland, there is or was a floating island; and in the Lake of Derwent Water, in Cumberland, such islands appear and disappear at indefinite periods. Mr. A. Pettingal, jun. has recently described a floating island, about a mile southwards of Newbury port, 140 poles in length, and 120 in breadth. It is covered with trees; and in summer, when dry weather is long continued, it descends to the bottom of the lake.—American, Journal of Science.