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
%ithout 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 cousiu—'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-
pleied 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 how 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'amie
un 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
Trinks say that her mother told her old Miss Jenks heard
Granny Cook say that it was a matter of fact. —American
paper.

HOOD versus 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 :us
enemy, what's the use of appearing to him ! if you can't
pitch into him.—New Monthly.

DISTRAINING FOR 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, weighina-
fifteen or twenty pounds, smocking hot on the table
.‘-s 'ie
'
happened to recollect that he had himself purchased pair of
ducks in the market that morning, he began to wonder how
saidtli ey
hbee became transformed
et rbadnys form
waiting ed i
un tpoo
nt the i dim,s h
"wherebefore hdi
imd
.thi‘si tpuerknec
come from ?" " Why, sa," said Ben, " d(i at ar turkey.; is been
roosin' on our fence dis three nights, and i
him for de rent oh de fence ."' mornm seise
A great niggar that . NA e
have a shrewd suspicion that he understands the laws of Tur-
key much better than his master.
ANECDOTE OF SHERlDAN.—Sheridan used to say that
the life of a manager was like the life of the ordinary of
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 Woon.—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. Tire female of the species is
much less, and, as will be seen, entirely unlike the male in
plumage. The general colour of the male on the upper parts
is chestnut brown irregularly marked with blackish lines ;
the breast is glossy greenish black, nass,ng into black on the
under surface. In the female the head, neck, and back are
marked with transverse
forestbarso eh of red
hdbirie
laicsk,i;r:7 the under
principallyl
surface is pale orange yellow barred with black.
e serving
'hc
cock
of the wood when in
the
touch
i s
to the oak and the pine tree, the cones oafabirtatt
for his food and the thick boughs for an theh i
sometimes will strip one tree bare before he gill
cones of another though just beside him. He feeds
fond of a moun-
tainous also upon
ant's eggs and cranberries. lie is chiefly
ot auitn
fooursa
ha
onrdt
pweoroi
nods
as intluoant
gi otnh.e c
0I In .
inmost part of the woods •
winter he resides •
in the
; in summer he ventures
darkest and
makes him a valuable prize, much soughtril aft delicacyer,
and
dodf
ol Ili:
these
occasions he appears most cautious ; he is seldom surprised,
and those who would take him
must at least venture up to
find him in his retreats. At the earliest return of spring, the
silence of the black and 1
g oomy forest is broken by
of the male wood co-
at During
sunset thi this
extremelyscascliis ta
stump or branch, and the
calling to his mates from some
stump
season of courtship con tinu
the trees have all their leaves bloom.e
and the forest is in full_awnand
the voice
the cock of the wood is seen 1
, headal expanded,at dawn
of the pine tree, ctlive upon one of the largest
neck protruded, wings lowered to
the feet,
swollen and red, walking
and forward 'while uttering
in postures most grotesque to us, instantly
followed cry to be heard at a great distance: this cry is instantly
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
with moss or dry leaves. She is now extremely tame and
tranquil, however wild and timorous in 5 ordinal' •
• The young
are seen, as with partridge, sometimes running
entirely disengaged from the shell. Ants'
after her not
mountain berries are their first food ; eggs and the wild
tops of heather and the cones of pine
they grow older the
hardy bird ; their food lies everywhere Pine trees. They are a
would seem that they should increase before them, and it
But this is not the case ; their in great abundance.
species, and still more numbers are thinned by other
When the mother's care by
their own salacious contests.
month or more, the
youne,ceases, which is at the end of a
keep in great harmony "males entirely forsake her, and
and then adieu to all together till the beginning of spring,
each other like game their former friendship. They flight
own safety thatit
, cocks, and are so inattentive to their
a shot. happens two or three of them are killed at