The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-20 00:00:00

VARIETIES,

SCRUPLES.—" Jo, how many scruples is there in a
drachm ?"—" Don't know, zur." " Well, remember,
there's eight."—" Eight ! pooh ! dad always 'takes his
without no scruples."—New York paper.
Beautiful is the love, and sweet the kiss of a sister; but
when you haven't a sister handy, try your cousin—'tisn't
much worse.

" Well, Miss," said a knight of the birchen rod, " can you
decline a kiss?" " Yes, Sir," said the girl, dropping a per-
plexed curtesy, " I can—but would rather not."

A gentleman was one day composing music for a lady to
whom he paid his addresses. " Pray, Miss D.," said he,
" what time do you prefer ?" "Oh !" she replied, carelessly,
" any time will do,—but the quicker the better." The com-
pany smiled at the rejoinder, and the gentleman took her at
her word.

Two glances make a bow' two bows a bow d'ye do, four
how d'ye do's a conversation, three conversations an acquain-
tance, nine hundred and ninety-nine acquaintances a friend.
THE FRENCH: LANGUAGE.—When some one was expa-
tiating on the merits of the French language to Mr. Canning,
he exclaimed—" Why what on earth, Sir, can be expected of
a language which has but one word for liking and loving, and
puts a fine woman and a leg of mutton on a par—J'anzie
Julie—J'ande an gigot !"

TROTTERS AND GALLOPERS.--A young man, whose
father had made a fortune by keeping a trotter-shop, very
soon lost it by keeping race-horses, which caused a wag to
say, " his father made his money by trottere, and the son
lost it by galloppers."

SINCERITY AND MORALITY SUPERIOR TO POLICY.—To
live with our enemies, as those who one day become our
friends, and live with our friends as those who, some time or
other, may become our enemies, equally contradicts the
nature of hatred and the rules of friendship. It may be a
good maxim in policy, but it is a detestable one in morality.
ROUNDABOUT EVIDENCE.—Mother Hopkins told me
that she heard Green's wife say that John Glarrie's wife
told her Granny Hopkins heard the widow Basham say that
Captain Weed's wife thought that Colonel Hodkin's wife
believed that old Miss Lamb reckoned that Samuel Dun-
ham's wife had told Spalding's wife that she heard John
Tricks say that her mother told her old Miss Jenks heard
Granny Cook say that it was a matter of fact. —American
paper.

HOOD versos GHOSTS.—Ghosts be hanged! No such things
in nature ; all laid long ago, before the wood pavement.
What should they come for ? The colliers may rise for higher
wages, and the Chartist may rise for reform, and Joseph
Sturge may rise for his health, and bread may rise, and the
rising generation may rise ; but that the dead should rise only
to make one's hair rise, is more than I can credit Suppose
yourself a ghost, Well, if you come out of your grave to
serve a friend, how are you to help him ? And if it's au
enemy, what's the use of appearing to him ! if you can't
pitch into him.—New Monthly.

DisTRAINING rot:. RENT.—" Speaking of Turkey," says
the N. 0. Picayune, we heard an extensive tale yesterday.
It was told us by a doctor. A man up town on going to din-
ner a day or two ago, found a magnificent turkey, weighing
fifteen or twenty pounds, smocking hot on the table. As he
happened to recollect that he had himself purchased a pair of
ducks in the market that morning, he began to wonder how
they became transformed into the dish before him. " Ben,"
said he to the boy waiting upon him, " where did this turkey
come from ?" " Why, Ea," said Ben, " dat ar turkey is been
roosin on our fence dis three nights, and dis mornin' I seize
him for de rent ob de fence !"A great niggar that fWe
have a shrewd suspicion that he understands the laws of Tur-
key much better than his master.

ANECDOTE ov SHERlDAN.—Sheridan used to say that
the life of a manager was like the life of the ordinary cf
Newgate, a constant superintendence of executions. The
number of authors whom he was forced to extinguish was,
he said, a perpetual literary massacre, that made St. Bar-
tholomew's altogether shrink in comparison. Play-writing,
singly, accounted for the employment of that immense
multitude who drain away obscure years beside the inkstand,
and haunt the streets with iron-moulded visages, and study-
coloured clothes. It singly accounted for the rise of paper,
which had exhausted the rags of England and Scotland, and
had almost stripped off the last covering of Ireland. He
had counted plays until calculation sank under the effort,
and every rejected play of them all seemed, like the clothes
of a Spanish beggar, to turn into a living, restless, merci-
less, indefatigable progeny.
THE COCK OF THE Noon.—ls of the gallinaceous order,
and the noblest species of the genus tetrao. It was formerly
common in the pine forests of Scotland and Ireland, as well
as all over England when a great part of the country was
covered with heath ; it is now wholly unknown in the south,
and but for the protection afforded the species by the Marquis
of Breadalbane in Scotland, would probably be now almost
extinct there. It abounds however, in the forests of Russia,
Norway, Sweden, and other parts of the north as well as
among the dense pine woods of the Alps. It varies in weight
from eight to fourteen pounds. The female of the species is
neck, and back 'L
much less, and, as will be seen, entirely, nlike the male in
plumage. The general colour of the male on the upper parts
is chestnut brown irregularly marked with blackish lines ;
the cones of the latter the breast is glossy greenish black, passhig into black on tl •
marledunder
withsurface.
tralnnsvteirsefebmarasleotfherehdeaaand black ; tTheheundaerer
boughs for an habitation. sot face is pale orange yellow barred with black.
of the wood when in the forest attaches himself principallycock
p one tree bare before he will touch the
just beside him. serving
tofor tihtiesofaokodananddthtehepintheictrkee,
He
He
In winter chiefly
he resides in the
.ionli. Y fond of a moun-
esoomueestiomfeasawo•tihllorsttrhiough
e feeds also upon
atanito'osuesggasnadndwocoradiyibesirtraieast
darkest and inmost part of the woods , • •
out for short periods among the corn.
TheT summer he ventures
makes him a valuable prize, much delicacy of his flesh
sought
occasions lie appears most cautious after, and on these
and those who would take him
; lie is seldom surprised,
find him in his retreats. At the must at least venture up to
silence of the black and glo earliest return of spring. the
gloomy of the male wood grouse forest is broken by the voice
stump or branch, and thecalling to his mates from some
the trees have all their . season of courtship continues till
leavess and the forest is in full bloom.
During this season the
at sunset extremel • cock of the wood is seen at dawn and
brunches
of the pine tree, his t active upon one of the largest
thefeet,
ail expanded, wings lowered to
neck protruded, head backward
swollen and red, walking
and forward inwhile uttering
postures most grotesque to us, .
a cry to be heard at . • this cry is instantly
a great distance .
followed by a noise like the whetting of a scythe, which
ceases and commences alternately for about an hour; and is
accompanied by a clapping of the wings, and is no sooner
finishes than the female approaches. The number of females
that resort to his call is uncertain. The trachea of this
bird makes a loose fold of two curves before it enters
the chest, so as to gain a great increase of length, and
is besides governed by a peculiar apparatus of muscles.
Upon all other occasions this bird is one of the most
timorous and watchful in nature, but during the time of
the cry described he seems entirely deaf, and insensible of
every danger • whatever noise may be made near him, or
, even though fired' at which is sometimes the case, for the noise
attracts both friends and foes, he still continues his call.
The female seldom lays more than six or seven eggs, which
are white marked with yellow, of the size of a common hen's.
She hatches them without the company of the cock. When
she leaves them in quest of food she covers them up artfully
3, with moss or dry leaves. She is now extremel • tame -
tranquil, however wild and timorous in ordinary, The young
and
- •
are seen, as with partridge, sometimes running after
entirely disengaged from the shell. Ants' eggs her not
mountain berries arc their first food ;as they and the wild
tops of heather and the cones of pin grow older the
bardy bird ; their food lies everywheree trees. They are a
would seem that they should increase before them, and it
But this is not the case ; their numbers
in great abundance.
species, and still more by
theirrobers are thinned by other
When the mother's care ceases, own salacious contests.
month or more, the
young which is at the end of a
keep in great harmony to;',_ .males entirely forsake her, and
and then adieu ~ . ,_'ther till the beginning of spring,
to an their '
each other like game tortner friendship. They flight
own safety that it li , and are so inattentive to their
:livens
a shot. two or three of them are killed at