Those who frequent the sea-coast are not long in discovering that their best dyed black hats become of a rusty brown; and similar effects are produced on some other colours.  The brown is, in fact, rust.  Most, if not all, the usual black colours have iron for a basis, the black oxide of which is developed by galls, logwood, or other substances containing gallic acid.  Now the sea-air contains a proportion of the muriates over which it is wafted; and these coming in contact with any thing dyed black, part with their hydrochloric (muriatic) acid, and form brown hydrochlorate of iron, or contribute to form the brown or red oxide, called rust.  The gallic acid, indeed, from its superior affinity, has the strongest hold of the iron; but the incessant action of the sea-air, loaded with muriates, partially overcomes this, in the same way as any acid, even of inferior affinity to the gallic, when put upon black stuff, will turn it brown.—­Ibid.

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THE DUGONG, THE MERMAID OF EARLY WRITERS.

Of all the cetacea, that which approaches the nearest in form to man is undoubtedly the dugong, which, when its head and breast are raised above the water, and its pectoral fins, resembling hands, are visible, might easily be taken by superstitious seamen for a semi-human being.—­Edinburgh Journal.

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SPIDERS.

Live and grow without food.  Out of fifty spiders produced on the last day of August, and which were kept entirely without food, three lived to the 8th of February following, and even visibly increased in bulk.  Was it from the effluvia arising from the dead bodies of their companions that they lived so long?  Other spiders were kept in glass vessels without food, from the 15th of July till the end of January.  During that time they cast their skins more than once, as if they had been well fed.—­Redi, Generat.  Insect.

Spiders are excellent barometers:  if the ends of their webs are found branching out to any length, it is a sure sign of favourable weather:  if, on the contrary, they are found short, and the spider does not attend to repairing it properly, bad weather may be expected.—­Times.

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SWARMING OF BEES.

The ingenious President of the Horticultural Society, Mr. T.A.  Knight, has been led from repeated observation to infer, that, in the swarming of bees, not a single labourer emigrates without previously inspecting its proposed future habitation, as well as the temporary stations of rest where their numbers collect soon after swarming.—­Philosophical Magazine.

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THE CHAMELEON’S ANTIPATHY TO BLACK.