Our friend J. H. H. whose letter on wild-fowl shooting, from Abbeville, is in vol. i. p. 1575, with another on lark shooting in France in the present volume, [p. 91], writes from Southover, near Lewes, in Sussex, on this day, 1826, “How delightful the country looks! I shall leave you to imagine two swallows, the first I have seen, now preening themselves on the barn opposite, heartily glad that their long journey is at an end.” The birds come to us this year very early.
Pump with two Spouts.
In a letter of the 5th of April, 1808, to Dr. Aikin, inserted in his “Athenæum,” Mr. Roots says,—“In the year 1801, being on a tour through the Highlands of Scotland, I visited the beautiful city of Glasgow, and in passing one of the principal streets in the neighbourhood of the Tron church, I observed about five-and-twenty or thirty people, chiefly females, assembled round a large public pump, waiting their separate turns for water; and although the pump had two spouts for the evacuation of the water behind and before, I took notice that one of the spouts was carefully plugged up, no one attempting to fill his vessel from that source, whilst each was waiting till the rest were served, sooner than draw the water from the spout in question. On inquiry into the cause of this proceeding, I was informed by an intelligent gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, that though one and the same handle produced the same water from the same well through either of the spouts, yet the populace, and even better informed people, had for a number of years conceived an idea, which had been handed down from father to son, that the water when drawn from the hindermost spout would be of an unlucky and poisonous nature; and this vulgar prejudice is from time to time kept afloat, inasmuch, as by its being never used, a kind of dusty fur at length collects, and the water, when suffered from curiosity to pass through, at first runs foul; and this tends to carry conviction still further to these ignorant people, who with the most solemn assurances informed me, it was certain death to taste of the water so drawn, and no argument could divest them of their superstitious conceit, though the well had been repeatedly cleaned out, before them, by order of the magistrates, and the internal mechanism of the pump explained. We need not be surprised at the bigotted ignorance of the ruder ages, either in this country or in less civilized regions, when we witness facts so grossly superstitious obtaining in our own time.”
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 45·67.