enthusiasm when we wrote the words 'student' or B. A. as a tail to our names?

A good time it was, my dear Spectator, to be a student in our college ten years ago; and it will be at once evident that on the non-resident system such a college life would be impossible; that the students would not be so much together, and that their temporal comforts would be decreased by the change; and yet there were bitter discomforts connected with college life on the old plan which the non-resident system immediately and effectually removed. I have remembrance of stormy scenes, of angry contests, of grudging jealousies, that belong especially to a residence in a college. I have seen an Irishman at breakfast-time throw a pot of hot scalding tea at the head of his fellow-student without thinking that he had done anything so out of the way. I have seen a student knocked down for a harmless jest; and I have witnessed insults offered that would shame an American senator's mode of dealing with his associates. I have seen meekspirited men oppressed by daily, hourly bullying until their very reason at times appeared to reel. I have seen a student 'put in coventry' for weeks together, while his heart was breaking down through want of fellowship and intercourse with his brethren.

Now there was an end to all this the moment we ceased to reside in the college. Disagreeable men might be kept at their proper distance; there was a larger company from which to select companies, and there was little opportunity for exchanging the discourtesies which at one time were as regular as the meals of the day. None can tell the comfort of the change but those who have known what it is to live in a resident college. A liberal weekly allowance was granted to each student by the committee; comfortable lodgings might be secured, and with a little husbanding of resources one might live with tolerable ease, although I must admit that as far as domestic arrangements are concerned, some of the old students lost by the change.

It seems to me, my dear Spectator, that the founders of New College got hold of the right idea when they determined to exercise faith in the piety of students, and to give them that knowledge of the world which would fit them for appearing in society without the awkward shamefacedness which belongs to the mere recluse. I remember when the idea was first made public there was no end to the fears which were expressed about what the students would be when removed from the watchful eye of their tutors, and though there were thousands of young men in shops and offices who kept themselves unspotted from the world, yet students for the Christian ministry were to be young rakes and prodigals! It was urged then as now, that the resident system provided thoroughly against any approach to any irregularity, and that the rules of the college obliging students to maintain certain habits and to keep certain hours, kept them out of the reach of temptations, to which on the new system they would be exposed.

Now, I know, and every old student knows, that if a man were inclined to do wrong, he could do it most effectually as a member of a resident college. It is sheer nonsense to talk about the watchful eyes

of tutors ever being upon the students, to keep them in order, or to see that they are doing their work. No tutor would bemean himself by becoming a spy, and no student who possessed an atom of selfrespect would remain in a college where his good faith and honour were being constantly suspected. A tutor without being a spy can soon see by the manner in which a student acquits himself in class whether the tone of his mind is what it ought to be, and whether he is a faithful, persevering, worker. This is his province; he is not a mere play-ground usher, to watch every action of the students, and to report thereon to the committee.

Occasionally there will be students who prove themselves morally as well as intellectually unfit to enter the ministry, and it is rather a good sign of the times that the standard by which the theological student is measured is becoming more and more elevated, and that those who give no real evidence of their fitness for ministerial work should be sent from college to make room for better men. It is much to be regretted that so few young men of education and of mental power now present themselves at the colleges as students for the ministry. What the cause may be I know not, but one exists, and it must be grappled with without delay. When we consider the attainments of many men when they enter college, it is perfectly marvellous how the tutors can make anything of them at all. The very gods we are told can do nothing with stupidity, but the tutors in our colleges must not believe the saying; they must do battle with ignorance and self-conceit year after year, and find but few who really turn out the men their course of training was adapted to make them! If students had the necessary capability, and thoroughly gave themselves to the course of study marked out for them, what scholars, what first-rate men they would be at the end of their five or six years in college. Look, for example, at the course of study pursued in New College, London, or in any of the institutions that have men of worth and power presiding over them. Can any one doubt that it is just that preparation which a young minister needs, if he is to obtain any standing in society, if he is to be useful and respected among his people? There is no comparison, my dear Spectator, between the education which one may now receive in college and that which students received even twelve or fifteen years ago. There is every inducement for the future minister to enter upon his work with mind and heart richly cultivated, possessed of those stores of knowledge which will make him invaluable to the persons among whom he may be sent to labour.

Would that all students were faithful to their college life, and that while free from the anxieties of the pastorate, they worked with a will at those studies which if put aside until the work of the ministry be entered upon will never be enthusiastically taken up, and will be most imperfectly mastered, if at all. Would that, laying aside every weight, they kept their work always before them, and felt the deepest and holiest interest in it! Then the Church of Christ would never lack able ministers, and the rising ministry would take a position in the world from which all inane charges of heresy and vapid lamentations about

unsoundness might be treated with perfect indifference. While treating with the disregard they merit the recent slanders which have suggested this letter to you, I am not without the hope that the students will return to their work with a more solemn and holy purpose than that which animated their hearts when they entered on their labours, and that by patient continuance in well doing they will put to shame the ignorance of foolish men.

p.p,

A Chapter on Flies.

USEFUL books are actually coming in again! The cycle of amusing literature has been accomplished, and authors are plucking up courage to write so as to give information, and are not quite hopeless of securing an audience equal to that commanded by Mr. Titmarsh, or Mr. Verdant Green. A book before us bears very evident indication that writers are not unwilling even to spend all their strength on a purely scientific subject; have faith that they can make it quite popular; and are pretty certain of their book being read. What subject could one write upon to ensure a general interest and attention? Something new, rare, and comparatively unknown? Not at all, reply our authors. What do you say to a book upon those very 'Humble Creatures,' the Earth-Worm and the Fly?' and a book exceeding in interest any half a hundred volumes that you could select from the comic or funny press has accordingly just made its appearance. The authors are Mr. James Samuelson and Dr. J. Braxton Hicks; their subjects those we have indicated; how they have treated them will appear from the numerous quotations we shall have to make as we go along.

6

We beg that it may be taken for granted that we know no more about flies than you do; good reader, that is to say, we know that they are insects (in-sections); that they have a most remarkable way of their own of running up and down window panes; that they are very troublesome to old gentlemen with bald heads; that they are most useful and industrious scavengers of all kinds of refuse; that they work early and late during their short life, and often die a most untimely death. You will say, when you have read what we intend to place before you, that they are entitled to much more honour and credit than would be allowed them by any one with the knowledge of only these five or six points-and that if very humble and very common-rather vulgaw,' in fact, from the aristocratic point of view -they, according to their order, faithfully and wonderfully minister to their Creator's glory.

When you speak of an absent friend, there is nothing like putting his worst points first. It is more candid, more kind, and more generous, than quoting them with a qualifying but, and so allowing

them to leave a disproportionate impression upon your auditor's mind. Our amusing and ingenious friend, the fly, deserves to be dealt with in no less honourable a manner. He has no particular fault, but we would be candid, and state that his relations are not the most pleasant or reputable. Some of his very nearest kin, in his own class, are thewell, it must be said, though we are sorry to say itthe Bug and the Louse. And having said that, we have stated the worst that we know of our humble, and now intimate, acquaintance. Our authors begin their letters upon the Fly by a familiar statement of the special characteristics of the class of insects to which it is related. We are glad to learn therefrom that it belongs to the highest of the three sub-classes, first, because it undergoes a complete transformation before it attains to the fly dignity; and, secondly, because it has the honour to possess two wings. They then proceed to remark, in order, upon the sections into which flies are divided. Look at the first that comes to steal your sugar, and you will see that these are three in number-head, chest, and abdomen; each very distinctly separated from the other. Now, although microscopic power of the highest perfection has been applied to these parts, with results which are photographed in a series of exquisite plates in the book under reviewthe very first part of a fly that attracts the naturalist's attention is the most mysterious. Protruding from the head are several feelers, or antennæ; the third joint of these antennæ is found, when magnified, to be perforated all over with minute punctures, closed from the atmosphere, and interspersed with a vast number of fine short hairs. From these,

cavities and brain nerves have been traced of the most intricate and curious construction. And what functions do the antennæ perform that they should be so curiously and wonderfully made? Science can give no answer. Our authors remark, that the sense of hearing has been assigned to them by such naturalists as Burmeister, Carus, Strauss-Durkheim, Oken, Robineau, Desvoidy, and Newport; that of smell, or smell and touch, by Reaumur, Lyonnais, and several French anatomists, Küster, Erichson, and Vogt; and it is not even yet decided whether they possess any one of these faculties. The only light that can be thrown upon the question is derived from analogy; but unfortunately, analogy supports each conclusion, and its light is, therefore, little better than darkness. How the question is argued from analogy will be gathered from the following quotation :

That is a question which naturalists have in vain essayed to answer, and the true function of the feelers is a problem still to be solved. Some zoologists attribute to them the sense of hearing, others of smell, and others again have superadded to the latter sense that of touch.

These conclusions have been arrived at by comparing the structure of the antennæ in various tribes of insects with their respective habits of life. They have been considered organs of sound chiefly on account of their anatomical structure; but Mr. Newport, a very careful observer, has also adduced, as an instance where the feelers exhibit a sensibility to sound, the fact of a beetle, which retracts its antennæ on a sudden noise, and falling down counterfeits death. On the other hand, we have various circumstances in evidence of their tactile and olfactory functions; amongst those may be quoted the ichneumon-fly, which lays its eggs by means of a sharp ovipositor in the larvæ of various insects; on the bodies of

these, the larva of the ichneumon subsist as soon as they are hatched. If we ob serve this insect seeking for larvæ or caterpillars that inhabit wood, old posts, &c., we shall notice that it pushes its antennæ before it into every irregularity of surface until it has met with a caterpillar, which it then pierces with its ovipositor, and injects one or more eggs. Other insects employ the antennæ for the same purpose; and it has been proved beyond a doubt that the sense of smeil guides them in depositing their eggs; for some insects, whose larvæ derive their nourishment from decaying meat, have been known to commit the singular mistake of placing them upon plants that possess a similar odour, but were totally unsuitable as food for the larvae, in consequence of which they died of hunger almost as soon as they were hatched. The bee, again, employs its antennæ, or organs of smell, in searching for honey: the ants use these organs to point out to each other the locality in which they have discovered food; and to suppose that they do this by means of signs caused by sound, would be attributing to them a power of impart ing information that could hardly be regarded as the result of instinct.'

How many eyes has a fly? Two!' will be the answer of the very first person you ask. In construction it has five, in use, more than four thousand. Here is the admirable description by our authors of

the wonderful mechanism of this iustrument of vision for a common fly:

The discovery by one of the authors of this little treatise of the existence of sacs behind the delicate membrane covering the pores, and also of the larger apertures already alluded to at the base of the third joint, may probably throw fresh light upon the nature of the antennæ. Meanwhile, however, we must continue to regard the question of their function as still unsettled, and content ourselves with observing that they possess some sensory function besides that of touch; either smell, hearing, or both.

If the antennæ of the fly have proved a mystery to naturalists, equally so have its wonderful eyes been the subject of speculative inquiry. These are five in number, two being compound, and of comparatively enormous proportions; for they monopolize the greater part of the head, from each side of which they protrude in a semi-globular form. The remaining three are small, simple in their structure, and disposed in a triangle on the top of the head, between the two compound eyes. We shall direct your attention chiefly to the last-named, the com pound organs. At the first glance, these resemble two small hemispheres, covered with a bright brown varnish; when you examine them more closely with a lens, the convex surface appears to be marked with a species of network, and, when placed under the microscope, this network is found to consist of a vast number of convex lenses, disposed in regular rows upon the projecting surface. These lenses, each of which forms the external surface of a simple, but perfect organ of vision, have been carefully counted, and their number amounts to 4,000; in other insects they are far more numerous.

If we make a vertical section of one of these compound eyes, dividing it by an incision across the middle of its circumference, and examine it under the microscope, we shall find it to be constructed as follows:-Each simple lens or facet is double convex and hexagonal in form; and behind this is a six-sided, transparent pyramid, so attached to the facet, that the latter forms, as it were, the base of the pyramid directed outwards. Each pyramid is imbedded in a dark pigment; so that the light which enters one facet may not be dispersed, nor penetrate into the neighbouring one, and thus cause a confusion of rays; from each facet, or rather from the apex of each pyramid, a distinct nerve passes into the substance of the eye, and all these nerves meeting in one common centre, form a large nervous trunk, which conveys the image of surrounding objects to the brain. You will therefore see that a perfect image of external objects is admitted into each facet, which, together with its pyramid, partake of the character of a telescopic tube; and that these images most probably centre in one point, from which the various nervous fibres pass.