Sea-Devil.—­Extract from the log-book of the ship Douglas.—­“Sailed May 3rd from Curacoa.  May 6th, at three P.M. in lat. 35 long. 68.40, made, as we supposed, a vessel bottom up, five or six miles distant—­proceeded within forty feet of the object, which appeared in the form of a turtle—­its height above water ten or twelve feet; in length twenty-five or thirty feet, and in breadth twelve feet, with oars or flappers, one on each side; twelve or fifteen feet in length, one-third of the way from his tail forward, and one on each side near his tail five feet long.  The tail twenty to twenty-five feet long,—­had a large lion face with large eyes.  The shell or body looked like a clinker-built boat of twenty-five or thirty tons, bottom up, and the seams of the laps newly paid.  There were some large branches on him.  This animal was standing south-east, and in the course of Bermuda, and his velocity about two knots per hour.  A vessel running foul of this monster might be much injured.”—­New York Paper, May 22.

Spawn of fish, minute mollusca, the small classes of squilla and cancer, are known to voyagers as causing a discolouration of the sea in particular places.  Patches and lines of these are often seen within the tropics, of a brown colour, and sometimes of a yellow, and of a red shade, floating upon the surface of the ocean, which, to those unused to such sights, are considered as indications of danger beneath.  I met with two patches of this description lately in the Torrid Zone, but the captain being familiar with such instances, sailed through them without apprehension.  The first consisted of myriads of small orbicular medusae, about the size of a pea, of a purple hue; the other patch of a reddish-brown colour, was produced by small mollusca, the size of a needle, and about a line in length.

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THE GATHERER.

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. 
SHAKSPEARE.

CURIOUS SIGN.

The following is on a violin maker’s sign-board, at Limerick:—­“New Villins mad here and old ones rippard, also new heads, ribs, backs, and bellys mad on the shortest notice.  N.B.  Choes mended, &c.

“Pat O’Shegnassy, painter.”

W.G.C.

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ANCIENT PROPHECY.

The author of “The Blasynge of Armes,"[7] at the end of Dame Julian Berners’s celebrated Treatise on Hawking, Hunting, and Fishing, has informed us that “Tharmes of the Kynge of Fraunce were certaynly sent by an angel from heven, that is to saye, thre floures in manere of swerdes in a feld of azure, the whyche certer armes were given to the forsayd Kynge of Fraunce in sygne of everlastynge trowble, and that he and his successours alway with batayle and swerdes sholde be punysshyd.”