measured by number, not by size, and
fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace of wild swans may almost serve
to set against a stag of ten. {23} The lover of nature has glimpses in
wild-fowl shooting such as she gives no other man--the glittering expanse
of waters, the birds "all in a charm," all uttering their cry together,
the musical moan of the tide, and the "long glories of the winter moon."
But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and rheumatism too
certain for wild-fowl shooting to be reckoned among popular winter
sports.

HUMAN LEVITATION.

Why is it that living fish add nothing to the "weight of the bucket of
water in which they swim?" Charles II. is said to have asked the Royal
Society. A still more extraordinary question has been propounded in the
grave pages of the _Quarterly Journal of Science_, edited by Mr. Crookes,
a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the discoverer of the useful metal
thallium. The problem set in this learned review does not, like that of
the Merry Monarch, beg the question of facts. "What is the scientific
inference from the various accounts, modern and traditional, of human
levitation?" is the difficulty before the world at this present moment.
Now, there may be people who never heard of levitation, nor even of
"thaums," a term that frequently occurs in the article we refer to. A
slight acquaintance with the dead languages, whose shadows reappear in
this queer fashion, enables the inquirer to decide that "levitation"
means the power of becoming lighter than the surrounding atmosphere, and
setting at nought the laws of gravitation.

Thaums, again, are wonders, and there is no very obvious reason why they
should not be called wonders. But to return to levitation. Most of us
have heard how Mr. Home and other gifted people possess the faculty of
being raised from the ground, and of floating about the room, or even out
of the window. There are clouds of witnesses who have observed these
phenomena, which generally occur in the dark. In fact, they are part of
that vague subject called spiritualism, about which opinion is so much
divided, and views are so vague. It has been said that the human race,
in regard to this high argument, is divided into five classes. There are
people who believe; people who investigate; people who think the matter
really ought to be looked into; people who dislike the topic, but who
would believe in the phenomena if they were proved; a