r doors,
locked, bolted, or barred.

Aelian relates that a man having three times successively closed the nest
of a Hoopoe, and having remarked the herb with which the bird, as often,
opened it, applied the same herb, and _with the same success_, to charm
the locks off the strongest coffer.--_Naturalists' Magazine_ (about 1805).

_His personal appearance_.--The beak is bent, convex and sub-compressed,
and in some degree obtuse; the tongue is obtuse, triangular and very short,
and the feet are ambulatory. As this bird has a great abundance of
feathers, it appears considerably thicker than it is. It is, in fact,
about the size of a mistletoe thrush, but looks, while in its feathers, to
be as large as a common pigeon.--_Naturalists' Magazine_.

I had got _no_ further in my _magnum opus_, when I unfortunately showed my
notes to Colonel--well, I will not mention his name, but he is the
greatest authority on the birds and beasts of Kashmir. He besought me to
spare him, pathetically remarking that I should cut the ground from under
his feet, and take the bread out of his mouth, and the wind out of his
sails, if I went any further with my monograph on the Hoopoe. He saw at a
glance that I was conversant with authorities whom he had never consulted,
and possessed a knowledge of my subject to which he could hardly aspire,
so I gracefully agreed to leave the field to him, and relinquished my
_magnum opus_ in its very inception.

One of the chiefest charms of Kashmir, and one which is apt to be
overlooked, is the entirely unspoilt freshness of its scenery. No locust
horde of personally-conducted "trippers" pollutes its ways and byways, nor
has the khansamah of the dak bungalow as yet felt constrained to add
sauerkraut and German sausage to his bill of fare--for which Allah be
praised!

The world is growing very small, and the globe-trotter rushes round it in
eighty days. The trail of the cheap excursionist is all over Europe, from
the North Cape to Tarifa, from the highest Alpine summit (which he attains
in comfort by a funicular railway) to the deepest mines of Cornwall. Egypt
has become his footstool, and the shores of the Mediterranean his wash-pot.
Niagara is mapped and labelled for his benefit, and the Yosemite is his
happy hunting-ground. He "does" the West Indies in "sixty days for sixty
pounds," and he is now arranging a special cheap excursion from the Cape
to Cairo. "But," it may be remarked, "what were Jane and I but