The The day after Clunie arrived, he thought it time to remove from Mellanauir, and took the Prince about two miles farther into Benalder, to a little sheal called Uiskchibra, where the hut or bothie was superlatively bad and smoky; yet His Royal Highness put up with every thing. Here he remained for two or three nights, and then removed to a very romantic habitation, made for him by Clunie, two miles farther into Benalder, called the Cage; which was a great curiosity, and can scarcely be described to perfection. It was situated in the face of a very rough, high and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. habitation called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for the habitation; and as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the way of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog. This whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof to the other, and which gave it the name of the Cage, and by chance there happened to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the face of the rock, which was so much of the same colour, that one could discover no difference in the clearest day. The Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons; four of whom were frequently employed playing at cards, one idle looking on, one baking, and another firing bread and cooking. Here His Royal Highness remained till the 13th of September, when he was informed, that the vessels for receiving and carrying him to France were arrived at Lochnanuagh. The Prince set out immediately; and travelling only by night, arrived at Boradale near Lochnanuagh, on the 19th of September, and embarked there on the 20th.' This work, as will appear from the extracts, is written with plainness and simplicity; and if some facts be omitted, or some obvious reflections avoided, nothing seems to us to have been "set down in malice." ART. II. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for promoting useful Knowledge. Vol. IV. 4to. pp. 700. Philadelphia, 1799. Imported by Johnson, London. Price 11. 118. 6d. Boards. T HIS volume has, by some accident, escaped our notice for a considerable period: but we shall now endeavour to report report its contents with all convenient promptitude and conciseness. Experiments and Observations relating to the Analysis of Atmospherical Air, by the Rev. Dr. J. Priestley.-After the full account which we have given of Dr. P.'s tract on the doctrine of Phlogiston*, we find it necessary to say little of the paper before us. From the small diminution of air, in the process of whitening bones in it by heat, and from a similar result in heating polished steel needles, Dr. Priestley concludes against the theory of the French chemists. He asserts, next, that dephlogisticated and inflammable air will unite completely, by being confined some time together in a moist bladder. Having mixed equal quantities of those kinds of air, I put them into a bladder, which I left floating in a trough of water, and found, after about a fortnight, that the quantity was considerably di minished; and examining it, I found it to be almost wholly phlo. gisticated, though there was something slightly inflammable in it. On this I put equal measures (but omitted to note the quantity) of each of the kinds of air into another bladder, and after about three weeks, found it reduced to 12.5 ounce measures, all pure phlogisticated air, without any mixture of fixed or inflammable air that I could perceive.' Some other arguments are adduced, which we suppose will not be reckoned satisfactory by the partisans of the new chemistry. Farther Experiments relating to the Generation of Air from Water, by the Same. In these experiments, Dr. P. states the quantity of air which he has procured from distilled water, without decomposing it. The general result is that he found it impossible to convert the whole of the water into air. Appendix to the preceding Memoirs, by the Same.-This short paper contains some additions to and explanations of the foregoing essays. See also Dr. Woodhouse's observations, mentioned in a subsequent part of this article. On the Expansion of Wood by Heat, in a Letter from David Rittenhouse, L.L. D. President of the Society From experiments made with a pyrometer, Dr. Rittenhouse found that dry wood expands with heat, though much less considerably than the metals, or than glass. Experiments on Evaporation, by C. Wistar, M. D. - Dr. Wistar's opinion respecting the evaporation which takes place from the surface of melving ice, suspended in air, reduced to * Rev. vol. xxxvi. N. S. p. 250. the the temperature of o, (Fahrenheit) is here confirmed by experiment. The inelastic vapour, raised on this occasion, is attributed to the passage of heat from the moist body into the contiguous air. A Memoir concerning the Fascinating Faculty which has been ascribed to the Rattle-Snake and other American Serpents. By Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D.-This ingenious essay will serve to eradicate the last remainsof a superstitious opinion, long maintained in natural history. Dr. Barton proves,by a variety of facts, that the motions of birds, which have been attributed to a fascinating power in the eyes of serpents, are in reality calculated to drive away the reptiles from the bird's young, or to divert their attention from the nest. I have already observed, that the rattle-snake does not climb up trees. But the black-snake and some other species of the genus coluber do. When impelled by hunger, and incapable of satisfying it by the capture of animals on the ground, they begin to glide up trees or bushes, upon which a bird has its nest. The bird is not ignorant of the serpent's object. She leaves her nest, whether it contains eggs or young ones, and endeavours to oppose the reptile's progress. In doing this, she is actuated by the strength of her instinctive attachment to her eggs, or of affection to her young. Her cry is melancholy, her motions are tremulous. She exposes herself to the most imminent danger. Sometimes, she approaches so near the reptile that he seizes her as his prey. But this is far from being universally the case. Often, she compels the serpent to leave the tree, and then returns to her nest.' The following incident, related on the authority of Dr. Rittenhouse, strongly confirms Dr. Barton's opinion: Some years since, this ingenious gentleman was induced to suppose, from the peculiar melancholy cry of a red-winged-maize-thief, that a snake was at no great distance from it, and that the bird was in distress. He threw a stone at the place from which the cry proceeded, which had the effect of driving the bid away. The poor animal, however, immediately returned to the same spot. Mr. Rittenhouse now weat to the place where the bird alighted, and, to his great astonishment, he found it perched upon the back of a large black-snake, which it was pecking with its beak. At this very time, the serpent was in the act of swallowing a young bird, and from the enlarged size of the reptile's bully it was evident, that it had already swallowed two or three other young birds. After the snake was killed, the old bird flew away.' As additional arguments, Dr. Barton observes that the usual food of the rattle-snake is the great frog; and that some of the stronger and more courageous American birds attack and devour the rattle-snake himself: the swallow-tailed hawk, and the larger kinds of owls, are particularly mentioned as his antagonists. The author adds, in a note; 15 • It It is commonly believed, that the rattle-snake is a very hardy animal; but this is not the case. A very small stroke on any part of its body disables it from running at all; and the slightest stroke upon the top of the head is followed by instant death. The skull. bone is remarkably thin and brittle; so much so indeed, that it is thought that a stroke from the wing of a thrush or robin would be sufficient to break it,' The whole memoir will be read with much pleasure. Some Account of an American Species of Dipus, or Jerboa. Ferboa. By the Same.-Dr. Barton has minutely described the distinctions between this animal and the Dipus Hudsonius; and an engraving of the latter is annexed to the paper. Little is yet known respecting the habits of this new species: but Dr. B. promises farther researches, which cannot fail to prove highly accep table to the lovers of natural history. A Letter from Mr. John Heckewalder, to Dr. Barton, giving an Account of the remarkable Instinct of a Bird called the Ninekiller. This curious fact cannot be better detailed than in the author's own words: I went to a farm, about eleven miles and a half from this place, to view a young orchard, which had been planted, about five weeks ago, under my direction, where on viewing the trees, I found, to my great astonishment, almost on every one of them, one and on some two and three grasshoppers, stuck down on the sharp thorny branches, which were not pruned when the trees were planted. I immediately called the tenant, and asked the reason and his opinion of this. He was much surprised at my ignorance about the matter, and informed me, that these grasshoppers were stuck up by a small bird of prey, which the Germans callced Neun-toedter (in Eng. lish, Nine-killer); that this bird had a practice of catching and sticking up nine grasshoppers a day, and that as he well knew they did not devour the grasshoppers, nor any other insects, he thought they must do it for pleasure. I afked him for a description of this bird, and was perfectly satisfied that it lived entirely on small animals, such as small birds, mice, &c. for I had paid attention to this bird as early as the year 1761, when, in the winter, one of the same species took a favourite little bird of mine out of my cage at the window, from which time I have watched them more closely, and have found them more numerous in the western country than here. Not being satisfied with what the tenant had told me respecting the intention of the bird's doing all this (viz. for diversion's sake), and particularly observing each and every one of these grasshoppers stuck up so regularly, and in their natural position as when on the ground, not one of them having its back downwards, I began to conjecture what might be the real intention which the bird had in this, and my determined opinion was, that this little bird-hawk, by instinet, made use of this art, in order to decoy the smaller birds, which feed on insects, and by these means have a fair opportunity of catching them. All this I communicated to my friends on my return home, and and they were not less astonished at what I had related to them, than I had been on discovering the fact. It being agreed that one or more gentlemen of learning and observation should more minutely examine into this matter, the proprietor of this farm, with another gentleman and myself, went this day out for the purpose; and viewing the grasshoppers on a number of these small trees (some of which we cut off, and took home), we returned to the tenant, who not only himself but also his father and sister gave us the best assur ances, that they had, long since, and from time to time, observed this bird catching grasshoppers and sticking them up in the manner already related, and that sometimes they had observed, in places where this species of bird keeps, numbers of grasshoppers stuck up on a thorn-bush in like manner. The Reverend Mr. V. Vleck is perfectly satisfied that this bird-hawk is the Lanius Canadensis (in Bartram, and has obligingly communicated the following account of this little bird-hawk to me: it is extracted from a German publication printed at Gottingen, in 1778, under the title of "Natural History for Children, by M. George Christian Paff," who after giving a description of the different species of this bird, concludes. thus: "Why is this bird of prey called the nine-killer? Because it is said to have the habit of sticking beetles or other insects, and perhaps sometimes nine of them in succession, upon thorns, that they may not escape until he has leisure to devour them all at once. for the same reason, it is sometimes called the thorn-sticker." by the above account, we see that it is known in Europe that this same species of birds actually does stick up insects of different kinds on thorns, &c. but it is supposed they eat them immediately after being stuck up. Here the case is quite otherwise. They remain stuck up, for we must suppose these to have been stuck up at least some weeks ago, and before the hard frosts set in. The very birds (as we suppose) that stuck them up are now on the same ground, watching the smaller birds that come out to feed, and have been seen catching the latter but a few days ago. If it were true, that this little hawk had stuck them up for himself, how long would he be feeding on one or two hundred grasshoppers? But if it be intended to seduce the smaller birds to feed on these insects, in order to have an opportunity of catching them, that number, or even one half, or less, may be a good bait all winter; and all of us, who have considered these circumstances, are firmly of opinion, that these insects thus stuck up, are to serve as a bait, &c. through the course of the winter." And Now An Enquiry into the Causes of the Insalubrity of flat and marshy Situations; and Directions for preventing or correcting the Effects thereof; by William Currie.-This gentleman imputes the unhealthiness of marshes to their action on the surrounding atmosphere, in which he supposes them to diminish the proportion of oxygen. This may perhaps be one cause of the mischief produced by them: but we apprehend that it is insufficient to account for the whole of the phænomena, in which moisture certainly has a considerable share. Mr. Currie's 3 peculiar |