BLACK GAME

Have increased greatly in the southern counties of Scotland and north of England within the last few years.  It is a pretty general opinion, though an erroneous one, that they drive away the red grouse; the two species require very different kinds of cover, and will never interfere.—­Note to White’s Selborne, by Sir W. Jardine.

BIRDS OF PREY.

All birds of prey are capable of sustaining the want of food and water for long periods, particularly the latter, but of which they also seem remarkably fond, drinking frequently in a state of nature, and during summer washing almost daily.—­Ibid.

EGYPT.

M. Champollion, in one of his recent letters, tells us that the whole of the island of Elephantina would hardly make a park fit for a good citizen of Paris, although certain modern chronologists would fain make it into a kingdom, in order to dispose of the ancient Egyptian dynasty of the Elephantines.

In another letter dated March last, he says, “Our establishment is in the Valley of Kings, which may truly be called the abode of death, as not a blade of grass is to be found in it, nor any living creature, except the jackall and hyaena, which the night before last devoured, at the distance of 100 steps from our palace, the ass which had carried my Barabra servant Mahomet, during the time that he was agreeably passing the night of the Ramadan in our kitchen, which is in a royal tomb, entirely dilapidated.”—­Translated in the Literary Gazette.

BEET-ROOT SUGAR.

The Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter for September, among the advantages which will probably lead to the discontinuance of the cultivation of sugar by slaves, enumerates the rapid extension of the manufacture of beet-root sugar in France; a prelude, as the editor conceives, to its introduction into this country, and especially into Ireland.

DRY ROT.

The American Commodore Barron recommends pumping air from the holds of vessels as a remedy against dry rot; the common mode of ventilation, by forcing pure air, or dashing water into the hold, being found an imperfect preservative.

ALLOYED IRON PLATE.

Iron, coated with an alloy of tin and lead, so as to imitate tin plate, and not to rust, is now manufactured to a considerable extent in Paris; and its use for sugar-pans and boilers, and in the construction of roofs and gutters is expected to be very considerable.

INTERESTING QUESTION.

Whether in the sea there be depths where no creature is able to live, or whether a boundary be assigned to organic life within those depths, cannot be ascertained.  It, however, clearly appears from the observations made by Biot, and other naturalists, that fishes, according to their different dispositions, live in different depths of the ocean.—­From the German.

CATS.