* * * * *

CHANGES IN ANIMALS.

All domestic mammiferous animals introduced into America have become more numerous than the indigenous animals.  The hog multiplies very rapidly, and assumes much of the character of the wild boar.  Cows did not at first thrive, but, in St. Domingo, only twenty-seven years after its first discovery, 4,000 in a herd was not uncommon, and some herds of 8,000 are mentioned.  In 1587, this island exported 35,444 hides, and New Grenada 64,350.  Cows never thrive nor multiply where salt is wanting either in the plants or in the water.  They give less milk in America, and do not give milk at all if the calves be taken from them.  Among horses the colts have all the amble, as those in Europe have the trot:  this is probably a hereditary effect.  Bright chestnut is the prevailing colour among the wild horses.  The lambs which are not from merinos, but the tana basta and burda of the Spaniards, at first are covered with wool, and when this is timely shorn, it grows again; if the proper time is allowed to elapse, the wool falls off, and is succeeded by short, shining, close hair, like that of the goat in the same climate.  Every animal, it would appear, like man, requires time to accustom itself to climate.

* * * * *

THE GREAT AMERICAN BITTERN.

A most interesting and remarkable circumstance we learn from the Magazine of Natural History, attends the great American Bittern; it is that it has the power of emitting a light from its breast equal to the light of a common torch, which illuminates the water so as to enable it to discover its prey.  As this circumstance is not mentioned by any naturalist, the correspondent of the journal in question, took every precaution to determine, as he has done, the truth of it.

* * * * *

Notes of a Reader.

* * * * *

BRITISH SEA SONGS.

One of our earliest naval ballads is derived from the Pepys Collection, and is supposed to have been written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.  It records the events of a sea-fight in the reign of Henry the Eighth, between Lord Howard and Sir Andrew Barton, a Scotch pirate; and it is rendered curious by the picture it presents of naval engagements in those days, and by a singular fact which transpires in the course of the details; namely, that the then maritime force of England consisted of only two ships of war.  In Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” there is another old marine ballad, called the “Winning of Cales,” a name which our sailors had given to Cadiz.  This affair took place in June, 1596; but the description of it in the old song presents nothing peculiar, or