spots. It is not venomous, and overcomes its prey by mere force. It preys on dogs, deer and oxen, which it swallows entire.

In the island of Java, one of these monsters has been known to kill and devour a buffalo. The serpent had for some time been waiting near the brink of a pool, in expectation of its prey, when a buffalo was the first that offered. Having darted upon the affrighted animal, it instantly began to wrap it round with its voluminous twistings, and, at every twist, the bones of the buffalo were heard to crack, almost as loud as the report of a cannon. It was in vain that the poor animal struggled hard and bellowed; its enormous enemy twined it too fast to get free; till at length its bones, being smashed to pieces, like those of a malefactor on the wheel, and the whole body reduced to one uniform mass, the serpent untwined its folds, to swallow its prey at leisure. To prepare for this, and in order to make the body slip down the throat more freely, it licked the whole body over, and thus covered it with saliva. It then began to swallow it, at that end, which offered least resistance, while its length of body was dilated to receive its prey, and thus took in at once, a morsel that was three times its own thickness. A more extraordinary feat was witnessed in the island of Ceylon, in which a boa, with equal ease, in presence of one of the British outposts, destroyed and gorged a tiger; but its gluttony caused its death, for after it had swallowed the animal, it became incapable of motion, and was killed without resistance.

THE VAMPIRE.

THE vampire is chiefly found in South America; it is about the size of a squirrel, and its wings, when extended, measure four or five feet. It has a sharp black nose, large and upright ears, the tongue pointed, talons very crooked: and strong, and no tail. At the end of the nose, it has a a long, conic, erect membrane, bending at the top, and flexible. They vary in color, some being entirely of a reddish brown, others dusky. They live on flesh, fish, and fruits, and are peculiarly fond of blood.

The vampire of India, and that of South America, I consider a distinct species. I have never yet seen a bat from India with a membrane rising perpendicularly from the end of its nose; nor have I ever been able to learn that bats in India suck animals, though I have questioned many people on this subject. I could only find two species of bats in Guiana with a membrane rising from the nose. Both these kinds suck animals and eat fruit, while those bats without a membrane on the nose, seem to live entirely upon fruit and insects, but chiefly upon the latter. A gentleman by name Walcott, from Barbadoes, lived far up the river Demerara. While I was passing a day or two at his house, the vampires sucked his son, a boy of about ten or eleven years old, some of his fowls, and his jackass. The youth showed me his forehead at day-break; the wound was still bleeding apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor ass was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night. I saw, by the numerous sores on his body, and by his apparent debility, that he would soon sink under his afflictions. Mr. Walcott told me, that it was with the greatest difficulty he could keep a few fowls, on account of the smaller vampire; and that the larger kind were killing his poor ass by inches. It was the only quadruped he had brought up with him into the forest.

Although I was so long in Dutch Guiana, and visited the Orinoco and Cayenne, ranged through part of the interior of Portuguese Guiana, still I could never find out how the vampires actually draw the blood; and, at this day, I am as ignorant of the real process, as though I had never Deen in the vampire's country. I should not feel so mortified at my total failure in attempting the discovery, had I not made such diligent search after the vampire, and examined its haunts. Europeans may consider as fabulous the stories related of the vampire; but, for my own part, I must believe in its powers of sucking blood from living animals, as I have repeatedly seen both men and beasts that had been repeatedly sucked; and, moreover, I have examined very minutely their bleeding wounds. Wishful of having it in my power to say that I had been sucked by the vampire, and not caring for the loss of ten or twelve ounces of blood, I frequently and designedly put myself in the way of trial. But the vampire seemed

to take a particular dislike to me; and the provoking brute would refuse to give my claret one solitary trial, though he would tap the more favored Indian's toe, in a hammock within a few yards of mine. For the space of eleven months, I slept alone on the loft of a woodcutter's abandoned house in the forest; and though the vampire came in and out every night, and I had the finest opportunity of seeing him, as the moon shone through apertures where windows had once been, I never could be certain, that I saw him make a positive attempt to quench his thirst from my veins, though he often hovered over the hammock.

WHALE FISHING.

AMONG the various pursuits of commercial nations, there is none so arduous and dangerous as the fisheries, and especially the Whale Fishery. Success in it, too, is quite uncertain, when applied to individual vessels; for three years are sometimes spent, and the earth nearly or quite circumnavigated by a crew, and they return home with a simple pittance. Yet where large companies are formed, and many vessels are employed at the same time, it is a business which is sure to give an ample equivalent for all the capital, time, and labor invested."

This trade was for a long time a source of great revenue to the Dutch and English governments, whose fishing region was confined chiefly to the northern seas, in the vicinity of Greenland and Spitzbergen. But the great number of vessels that went annually upon those fishing grounds disturbed the whales, and they deserted their old haunts for places more secure. The whales found in these regions are called black or right whales, and furnish oil of an inferior quality to that procured from the sperm whale of the Pacific ocean and the South Seas.

For many years a great number of American vessels and seamen have been employed in this trade, the largest proportion of which are sent out from Nantucket and New Bedford. They are chiefly engaged in the sperm fishery; and it is estimated that in the Pacific there are now upward of eight thousand American seamen employed in this business.

The manner of taking whales is as follows:-as soon as one is discovered by his blowing or spouting, the boats are got out, and each manned with six or seven men. These boats are so constructed that they dart over the water with great speed, and are managed with ease and facility. They row till they come near the whale, when the harpooner, standing in the bow, strikes it with a harpoon near the snout, or the fore fin. In an instant the whale darts off, sometimes near the surface, at other times diving many fathoms toward the bottom. Care is then taken to give it plenty of line, and as it sometimes runs out more than the whole length of the line (upward of two hundred fathoms,) a man stands ready to cut it, otherwise the boat would be drawn under. So rapidly does the whale proceed, that it is necessary to wet that part of the boat over which the line passes, to prevent the friction from setting it on fire.

Whales are so much amphibious in their nature, that they cannot remain a very long time below water, but come up to breathe. This being the case, they frequently receive a second and even a third harpoon, before the fatal blow is given. These second attacks are the most dangerous to the whalers, and frequently boats are destroyed by the flukes of the fish, when it is rendered furious by pain.

The fat whales do not sink as soon as dead, but the lean ones do, and come up some days afterward, when they are towed to the side of the ship, and the blubber or part containing the oil is detached from the carcass and taken on board. The bone is then secured and the carcass sent adrift.

The imminent danger to which whalers are exposed, is well described in the following sketch from the pen of Captain Marryatt. It is a part of a long yarn, spun by an old tar:

"Well, we had waited about half an hour, when we saw a whiff at the mast-head of the ship; we knew that it was to direct our attention to some other point, so we looked round the horizon, and perceived that there was a school' of young bulls about three miles from us. We were four boats in all; and the first mate desired my boat and another to go in chase of them, while he remained with the other two, for this old whale to come up again. Well, off we went, and soon came up with the school;

they are the most awkward part of whale fishing; for they are savage, and, moreover, easily 'gallied, that is, frightened. I picked out one, and tried to come up with him; but he was very shy, and at last he raised his head clean out of the water, and set off at the rate of ten miles an hour; this showed that he was aware of danger. I had just thought of giving him up and trying for another, when he suddenly turned round, and came right toward the boats. That, we knew, meant mischief; but, in coming toward us, he passed close to the other boat, and the steersman gave him the harpoon right well into him. This made him more savage, and he stood right for my boat, ploughing up the sea as he rushed on. I was all ready in the bow with the harpoon, and the men were all ready with their oars to pull back, so as to keep clear of him. On he came, and when his snout was within six feet of us, we pulled sharp across him, and as we went from him, I gave him the harpoon deep into the fin. 'Starn all!' was the cry, as usual, that we might be clear of him. He 'sounded' immediately, that is, down he went, head foremost, which was what we were afraid of, for you see we had only two hundred fathoms of line in each boat; and having both harpoons in him, we could not bend one to the other, in case he 'sounded' deep; for sometimes they will go down right perpendicular, and take four lines, or eight hundred fathoms with them; so we expected that we should this time lose the whale as well as our lines, for when they were run out, we must either cut or go down with him. Well, the lines ran out so swift, that we poured water on them that they might not fire, and we thought that it was all over, for the lines were two-thirds out, and he was going down as fast as ever, when all of a sudden he stopped. We were hauling in the slack lines, when we saw him rise again, about a quarter of a mile off. It was a hurrah, for we now thought we had him. Off he set with his nose up, right in the wind's eye, towing the two boats at the rate of twelve miles an hour; our stems cleaving through the sea, and throwing off the water like a plume of feathers on each side of the bows, while the sun's rays pierced through the spray and formed bright rainbows. We hoped soon to tire him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as to get near enough to give our lances; but that was only hope, as you'll hear.

Of a