always continuing to dance or jump to the same tune for many minutes, and always resting before a change of tune. I once kept a male and a female in one large cage, who performed a peculiar dance together thus; the male jumped sideways, describing a portion of a circle in the air; the female described a portion of a smaller circle concentric with the first, always keeping herself duly under the male, performing her leap precisely in the same time, and grounding her feet in the same moment with him.

While the male moved from A to B, or from B to A, the female moved from C to D, or from D to C, and their eight feet were so critically grounded together, that they gave but one note. I must observe, that this practice of dancing seems to be an expedient to amuse them in their confinement; because, when they are for a time released from their cages, they never dance, but reserve this diversion until they are again immured."

Mr. Urban's correspondent continues thus, no squirrel will lay down what he actually has in his paws, to receive even food which he prefers, but will always eat or hide what he has, before he will accept what is offered to him. Their sagacity in the selection of their food is truly wonderful. I can easily credit what I have been told, that in their winter hoards not one faulty nut is to be found; for I never knew them accept a single nut, when offered to them, which was either decayed or destitute of kernel: some they reject, having only smelt them; but they seem usually to try them by their weight, poising them in their fore-feet. In eating, they hold their food not with their whole forefeet, but between the inner toes or thumbs. I know not whether any naturalist has observed that their teeth are of a deep orange colour."

This gentleman, who writes late in the year 1788, proceeds thus, “A squirrel sits

by me while I write this, who was born in the spring, 1781, and has been mine near seven years. He is, like Yorick, 'a whoreson mad fellow-a pestilent knave-a fellow of infinite jest and fancy. When he came to me, I had a venerable squirrel, corpulent, and unwieldy with age. The young one agreed well with him from their first introduction, and slept in the same cage with him; but he could never refrain from diverting himself with the old gentleman's infirmities. It was my custom daily to let them both out on the floor, and then to set the cage on a table, placing a chair near it to help the old squirrel in returning to his home. This was great exercise to the poor old brute; and it was the delight of the young rogue to frustrate his efforts, by suffering him to climb up one bar of the chair, then pursuing him, embracing him round the waist, and pulling him down to the ground; then he would suffer him to reach the second bar, or perhaps the seat of the chair, and afterwards bring him back to the floor as at first. All this was done in sheer fun and frolic, with a look and manner full of inexpressible archness and drollery. The old one could not be seriously angry at it; he never fought or scolded, but gently complained and murmured at his unlucky companion. One day, about an hour after this exercise, the old squirrel was found dead in his cage, his wind and his heart being quite broken by the mischievous wit of his young messmate. My present squirrel one day assaulted and bit me without any provocation. To break him of this trick, I pursued him some minutes about the room, stamping and scolding at him, and threatening him with my handkerchief. After this, I continued to let him out daily, but took no notice of him for some months. The coolness was mutual: he neither fled from me, nor attempted to come near me. At length I called him to me: it appeared that he had only waited for me to make the first advance; he threw off his gravity towards me, and ran up on my shoulder. Our reconciliation was cordial and lasting; he has never attempted to bite me since, and there appears no probability of another quarrel between us, though he is every year wonderfully savage and ferocious at the first coming-in of filberts and walnuts. He is frequently suffered to expatiate in my garden; he has never of late attempted to wander beyond it; he always climbs up a very high ash tree, and soon

"The times have been that when the brains were out the man would die; they were "the times!" Yet, even in those times, except "the Anthrophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," men, whose heads grew upon their shoulders, wore them in that situation during their natural lives until by accident a head was taken off, and then infallibly "the man would die." But the extraordinary persons called "saints," were exempt from ordinary fatality could all their sayings be recorded, we might probably find it was as usual for a decapitated saint to ask, "Won't you give me my head?" before he walked to be buried, as for an old citizen to call, 'Boy, bring me my wig," before he walked to club.

:

St. Denys was beheaded with some other martyrs in the neighbourhood of Paris. "They beheaded them," says the reverend father Ribadeneira, "in that mountain which is at present called Mons Martyrum (Montmartre), the mountain of the martyrs, in memory and honour of them; but after they had martyred them, there happened a wonderful miracle. The body of St. Denys rose upon its feet, and took its own head up in its hands, as if he had triumphed and carried in it the crown and token of its victories. The angels of heaven went accompanying the saint, singing hymns choir-wise, with a celestial harmony and concert, and ended with these words, 'gloria tibi, Domine alleluia;' and the saint went with his head in his hands about two miles, till he met with a good woman called Catula, who came out of her house; and the body of St. Denys going to her, it put the head in her hands." Perhaps this is as great a miracle as any he wrought in his life; yet those which he wrought after his death "were innumerable." Ribadeneira adds one in favour of pope Stephen, who "fell sick, and was given over by the doctors in the very monastery of St. Denys, which is near Paris; where he had a revelation, and he saw the princes of the apostles, St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Denys, who lovingly touched him and gave him perfect health, and this happened in the year of our Lord, 704, upon the 28th of July; and in gratitude for this favour he gave great privileges to that church of St. Denys, and carried with him to Rome certain relics of his holy body, and built a monastery in his honour."

It appears from an anecdote related by

minent French physician, that it was believed of St. Denys that he kissed his head while he carried it; and it is equally marvellous that a man was so mad as not to believe it true. The circumstance is thus related:

;

"A famous watchmaker of Paris, infatuated for a long time with the chimera of perpetual motion, became violently insane, from the overwhelming terror which the storms of the revolution excited. The derangement of his reason was marked with a singular trait. He was persuaded that he had lost his head on the scaffold, and that it was put in a heap with those of many other victims: but that the judges, by a rather too late retraction of their cruel decree, had ordered the heads to be resumed, and to be rejoined to their respective bodies and he conceived that, by a curious kind of mistake, he had the head of one of his companions placed on his shoulders. He was admitted into the Bicétre, where he was continually complaining of his misfortune, and lamenting the fine teeth and wholesome breath which he had exchanged for those of very different qualities. In a little time, the hopes of discovering the perpetual motion returned; and he was rather encouraged than restrained in his endeavours to effect his object. When he conceived that he had accomplished it, and was in an ecstasy of joy, the sudden confusion of a failure removed his inclination even to resume the subject. He was still, however, possessed with the idea that his head was not his own: but from this notion he was diverted by a repartee made to him, when he happened to be defending the possibility of the miracle of St. Denys, who, it is said, was in the habit of walking with his head between his hands, and in that position continually kissing it.

What a fool you are to believe such a story,' it was replied, with a burst of laughter; How could St. Denys kiss his head? was it with his heels?" This unanswerable and unexpected struck and confounded the madman so much, that it prevented him from saying any thing farther on the subject; he again betook himself to business, and entirely regained his intellects.”*

St. Denys, as the great patron of France,

Pinel on Insanity.

were obliged to follow through ponds and ditches, 66 over brake and briar." Every person they met was taken up by the arms and bumped, or swung against another. Each publican furnished a gallon of ale and plum-cake, which was consumed in the open air. This was a septennial custom and called gangingday."

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Holly. Ilex aquifolium. Dedicated to St. Ethelburge.

October 12.

St. Wilfrid, Bp. of York, A. D. 709.
Seasonable Work.

Now come the long evenings with devices for amusing them. In the intervals of recreation there is "work to do." This word "work" is significant of an employment which astonishes men, and seems never to tire the fingers of their industrious helpmates and daughters; except that, with an expression which we are at a loss to take for either jest or earnest, because it partakes of each, they now and then exclaim, WOmens' work is never done!" The assertion is not exactly the fact, but it is not a great way from it. What 66 Inan of woman born" ever considered the quantity of stiches in a shirt without fear that a general mutiny among females might leave him " without a shirt to his back?" Cannot an ingenious spinner devise a seamless shirt, with its gussets, and wristbands, and collar, and selvages as durable as hemming? The immense

work in a shirt is concealed, and yet happily every "better half" prides herself on thinking that she could never do too much towards making good shirts for Is it not in his power her "good man." to relieve her from some of this labour? Can he not form himself and friends into a" society of hearts and manufactures,"

machinery and steam? These inquiries are occasioned by the following

LETTER FROM A LADY.

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book Sir,

I assure you the Every-Day Book is a great favourite among the ladies; and therefore, I send for your insertion a

* Brand.

Confessor.

This, in the church of England calendar and almanacs, denotes the day to be a festival to the memory of the removal of his bones or relics, as they are called by the Roman church, from whence the festival is derived.

Corpulency.

On the 13th of October, 1754, died at