The consumption of tea is increasing every year.  In 1823, the importation was 24,000,000 lb.; in 1826 it was 30,000,000 lb.; and in the year ending Jan. 5, 1828, 39,746,147 lb.—­Oriental Herald.

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POETS NOT BOTANISTS.

Addison, who was probably unacquainted with the flower described by Virgil, represents the Italian aster as a purple bush, with yellow flowers, instead of telling us that the flower had a yellow disk and purple rays.

  Aureus ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum
  Funduntur, violae sublucet purpura nigrae.

Virgil, Georgic iv.

  The flower Itself is of a golden hue,
  The leaves inclining to a darker blue;
  The leaves shoot thick about the root, and grow
  Into a bush, and shade the turf below.

Addison.

Dryden falls into the same error:—­

  A flower there is that grows in meadow ground,
  Aurelius called, and easy to be found;
  For from one root the rising stem bestows
  A wood of leaves and violet purple boughs. 
  The flower itself is glorious to behold,
  And shines on altars like refulgent gold.

 Mag.  Nat.  History

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RIVAL SINGERS.

In 1726-7, there was a sharp warfare in London between two opera singers, La Faustina and La Cuzzoni, and their partizans.  It went so far that young ladies dressed themselves a la Faustina and a la Cuzzoni.  We need not wonder, therefore, at the hair a la Sontag in our days, or gentleman’s whiskers a la Jocko.

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SHARKS.

In a recent voyage from Bombay to the Persian Gulf, an Arab sailor of a crew, who was the stoutest and strongest man in the ship on leaving Bombay, pined away by disease, and was committed to the deep by his Arab comrades on board, with greater feeling and solemnity than is usual among Indian sailors, and with the accustomed ceremonies and prayers of the Mohamedan religion.  The smell of the dead body attracted several sharks round the ship, one of which, eight feet in length, was harpooned and hauled on board.—­Oriental Herald.

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JONAH’S “WHALE.”

At a late meeting of the Wernerian Society at Edinburgh, the Rev. Dr. Scot read a paper on the great fish that swallowed up Jonah, showing that it could not be a whale, as often supposed, but was probably a white shark.

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MUSHROOMS.

The large horse-mushroom, except for catsup, should be very cautiously eaten.  In wet seasons, or if produced on wet ground, it is very deleterious, if used in any great quantity.—­Mag.  Nat.  Hist.