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SELF-IMITATIVENESS OF NATURE.

body and wings, with a delicate, long, recurved neck, rather swollen at its extremity for the head, all of a spotless white! Then a livid old gentleman's half-countenance confronted him, and pulling down the old fellow's lower jaw, the visitor beheld a mouth without a tongue, gums without teeth, and an attempt at a throat behind. The spider-orchid is a remarkable flower; a great brown spider mimicked to the life squatting at the entrance of its vegetable den, and scaring away all intruders by its menacing aspect! The bee and fly orchis, are familiar instances. One of this species is called the man-orchis, the Anthropophora. If there are fairies in the floral world, here is Oberon himself. Lizards, toads, and insects, appear to have sat to the painter and modeler in the formation of many other orchids; and ladies will be astonished to learn that one impertinent flower is a complete pair of stays in miniature. Another, called after its original, displays the most unmistakeable similarity to a human thorax, even in minute particulars.

The mandrake when stripped of its leaves has occasionally a rude resemblance to the human form. The old-man cactus, Cactus senilis, is about as odd a plant as any in our list. Reaching a height of eight or ten feet, he is often seen in his native place, his long white hair flowing to his feet, spending a peaceful existence, and attaining a green old age in spite of the early streaks of grey which appear on his head. That blushing production, the love apple, the tomato of epicures, sometimes commits some imitative freaks. Occasionally it breaks out into roseate fingers, and now and then it has the form of a pair of chubby hands folded together.

The Testacea in the zoological kingdom are the analogues, in this particular, of the Orchidacea in the vegetable world, and they have on more occasions than one supplied the decorator and architect with forms and principles of construction of no trifling beauty or value. Our present business with them is of the other character. The shell of the Cassidea derives its name from its resemblance to a helmet; and the Struthiolaria and the Aporrhais respectively simulate the foot of an ostrich, and that of a pelican. Then there are shells which resemble pears, spindles spirally twisted, tulips; and a curious variety is marked by ribs, which proceed in successive lengths across so as to resemble the strings of a harp, whence the name Harpa. Other shells more or less imitate the different kinds of fruit, and we have testaceous olives, strawberries, melons, dates, oranges, the cowrie, apples, and also turnips. The resemblance also to a sharply-cut

taper screw is a very common appearance. The shell named the Porcellaina, or pig-cowrie, is crossed by ribs on its back in such a manner as to resemble a scored pig. Another pretty shell, named the Bullina, resembles a rose-bud. Others are like the ear, like buttons, razors, shuttles; in short, the resemblances are infinite. Most wonderful of all are the Encrinites, the stone plants. The Encrinus moneliformis, principally found as a fossil in Brunswick, presents us with a truly elegant simulation. It appears in the form of a lily, and is called the "lily encrinite," the stalk, sepals, and partially-folded petals of the flower, are imitated with the strictest exactness. A good representation of this marvel of an early ocean will be found in many works on geology, Dr. Mantell's in particnlar. The pear-encrinites of the oolitic limestone, when their tentacula were expanded, wore all the appearance of extremely diminutive palm-trees. The fossil actino encrinite is singularly like a thistle, the stalk, &c., and even the down, being pretty faithfully represented. The Comatula, the modern representatives of the fossilized encrinites keep up the ancestral renown, but with less dignity-they imitate wigs; they are called sea-wigs.

Among the corals are also some instances in point. The well-known coral the Meandrina cerebreformis, or brainstone, is strikingly similar in appearance to the human brain. In external form, in the convolutions, and even in its semipinkish color, the fresh coral approximates so nearly to its prototype as to have set several visionary naturalists, Robinet especially, upon some very extraordinary and equally ridiculous theories. Other corals are like petrified Christmas puddings, and the Caryophylla has the singular aspect of the sprig of a tree, the ends of the branches being tipped with clove-buds. The Gorgonia flabellum, or sea-fan, is too frequently an ornament of our drawing-rooms to require further notice.

Among fish we meet with a few of these strange imitations. There is a well-known shark, the head of which is of the shape of a hammer. The torpedo is not unlike a frying-pan; another fish has a snout like a tobacco-pipe. Among collections of dried fish, one will sometimes be found which is recognized as the sea-horse, bearing as it does a ludicrous affinity to a horse in miniature. The bull-heads, sea-scorpions, sea-butterflies, sunfish, saw-fish, coffin-fish, and many more, possess names which suggest all that description could convey concerning them.

The insect world is rich in the correspondencies of form. In the pupa state the old natural

THERE'S LIGHT BEHIND THE CLOUD.

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ists found to their hearts' content mimicries of the human face. One of the remarkable instances is that of the Scarabæus manopus, or kangaroo beetle. The insect is more than two inches in length, and in its attempted marsupial mimicry, has an appearance thoroughly uncommon and irresistibly grotesque. The insect seems half a beetle and half a kangaroo, the peculiarly formed hinder legs of that animal being the most striking features of the insect. The strange insects called the "walking-sticks," must not be passed by—they are precisely like pieces of walking-stick. The ferocious stag-beetle possesses long jaws, which closely correspond with the appearance of antlers. The rhinoceros and elephant beetles, three or four inches in length at the most, mimic with pretentions to partial accuracy the figures of their stupendous co-nominees. The rhinoceros-beetle has a process comparable to the tusk of that enormous brute. The "death's head" hawk-moth, the Acherontia atropus, has the figure of that object faithfully depicted on the upper part of its body, near the head. Many insects are like spectres, and are well calculated to intimidate all assailants by the very frightfulness of their aspect. The caterpillars of several moths are remarkable for putting on a variety of imitative forms.

We are now about to record one of the most startling examples of coincidence in form which natural history supplies-the Phyllo-morphous insects. A naturalist at the Cape of Good Hope on one of his excursions, saw at his feet some withered leaves whose tints pleased his eye, and he put forth his hand to take them up,-conceive his utter amazement to behold them all take to their legs and run away! There was no mistake about it; there they were, all making off as fast as possible. He instantly seized one of them,

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or Phyllo-morphous insects. The limbs of these curious creatures are concealed by lamina of thin tissue, so tinted as to wear the precise aspect of leaves; and the resemblance is heightened by the veins which traverse them, just as in the case of real leaves. In the British Museum entomological collection there are several beautiful examples of these insects; one, called the "myrtle-leaf," is as nearly like a leaf in form, veining, and in its delicate green tint, as is possible. These insects are principally tropical, and belong to the orders Locusta, Mantis, and Phasma.

As we rise in the scale, our zoological gleanings become very meagre. We have birds whose bills resemble spoons; others, boats; many wear exquisite ruffs; some carry the venerable appendage of a long beard, and others have helmeted heads of very terrible aspect. In the Canadian forests there is a bird called the "Soldier of the Woods," from the correspondence of its plumage with the bravery of military caparison. One of the most elegant analogies of form among the feathered tribes, is the Manura superba, or lyretail; it is a beautiful bird, which carries in its magnificent tail a wonderfully close imitation of the form of an ancient Greek lyre. The margin of the lyre is formed by two feathers on each side, which are broad, and curve into scrolls at the upper end, while the strings find their representatives in a number of thin, delicate, wire-like feathers. This unhappy bird finds the truth that extraordinary beauty is one of the most dan gerous possessions, too fully confirmed; for the sake of its tail it is shot, and hunted down without mercy, and will very probably soon become extirpated.

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VISIT TO THE PERE LA CHAISE AT PARIS.

BY A RETURNED

TRAVELER.

THE extensive and well-known burying ground of the Parisians, which lies to the north-east of the city, is situated on the slope of a hill, which extends from Belleville to Charonne. In the fourteenth century the spot now occupied by the cemetery was celebrated for the beauty and salubrity of its situation, and was chosen by a rich citizen as a place of retreat from the cares and gayeties of the metropolis. In the earliest ages of the monarchy it was called the "Bishop's Field," and belonged to the Bishop of Paris; but in the fourteenth century it was purchased by a wealthy grocer named Regnault, who built a magnificent mansion upon it, which the people designated "Regnault's Folly." Upon the death of this ostentatious merchant, a female devotee purchased it, and it was presented by her to the Society of the Jesuits, whose monastery was in the Rue St. Antoine. It retained the name of the Bishop's Field until the time of Louis XIV., who authorized the Jesuits to call it Mount Louis, appointing his confessor, Le Pere, or Father La Chaise, superior of the establishment in 1765, and constituting, by his patronage, this monastery the focus of Jesuitical intrigue and power in France. Regnault's house was considerably enlarged, and the gardens were finely planted and ornamented; but the order of Jesuits being suppressed, Mount Louis was sold to pay the debts of the community. It was finally purchased for 160,000 francs, after having several proprietors, by M. Frochot, prefect of the Seine, who intended to convert it into a cemetery. M. Brongniart, the celebrated civil engineer, surveyed it, and was appointed to adapt it to its new purpose, and he carefully preserved whatever would conduce to the embellishments of the cemetery. A wide road was opened to the spot where the house of Pere La Chaise formerly stood; winding walks were formed, and lime-trees, poplars, cypresses, fruit-trees, and shrubs, were planted, to preserve as much as possible the appearance of the Jesuits' garden in the burialground; and forty-two acres of ground were thus appropriated for the inhumation of the dead. It was in the beginning of the year 1804 that the cemetery was consecrated, and on the 21st day of May of that year, the first grave was opened.

Gradually, within the last forty years, the boundaries of Pere La Chaise have been extending, until, by the addition of fifty-two acres purchased last year, it now comprehends above one hundred and fifty acres. The cemetery has two distinct divisions—one appropriated to the sepulture of the Parisians, the other to that of Jews. This cemetery is properly the burying-place of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth arrondissements of Paris; but exceptions are made in favor of those who purchase pieces of ground in perpetuity, and to whom the municipality of Paris may grant the same. The rates of value are so arranged as totally to prevent any of the ground being bought on speculation, or of large quantities of it becoming the property of the rich. If one grave cost two, for instance, the next will cost three, the next four, and so on in proportion-the value of the space for a grave always increasing one in value above that of the one that has preceded it.

Within the semi-circular recess which forms the principal entrance to the Pere La Chaise are little stands, where women are busily engaged in making wreaths of immortelles, which they sell, and with which pious mourners cover the tombs of their departed friends and relatives. These wreaths are simple circles of yellow everlasting flowers, or white ones with little mottoes painted in black, such as "A ma fille," "Ma mere," "Mon pere," &c.-little sentences that comprehend a world of feeling.

We entered Pere La Chaise with high expectations of gratification, and we were not ten minutes within its precincts until we felt ourselves thoroughly disappointed. It is a city of the dead, where little marble chapels and tombs jostle each other, and weary the senses with their perpetual sameness. There is none of the cultivated beauty of Highgate Cemetery, near London, about Pere La Chaise; none of the picturesque and softened sacredness of the Dean, at Edinburgh; none of the graceful rural beauty of Greenwood, or the picturesqueness of Mount Auburn. Rank grass and uncultured shrubs grow up around the little chapelles of stone and marble, and splendid flowers sometimes adorn the graves; but as the places of sepulture are

VISIT TO THE PERE LA CHAISE AT PARIS.

generally private, no general appearance of attention or care is visible. On each side of the grand way, which is curtained by lime-trees, are a succession of little chapelles about seven feet high and four or five broad. Iron gates, with open railings, admit an inspection of the interiors of these, and in them there is to be seen all the visible testimonies of grief, love, and hope. A little altar, with candelabra, adorns every one of these chapelles, and wreaths of immortelle and relics of the departed ones occupy shelves and niches in them. Pieces of embroidery, that had been probably wrought by the deceased-some object of their affection, such as the baby dolls of a child-bouquets of fresh or withered flowers, silver-gilt censers, books, rosaries, and beads, were to be seen laid out with all the profusion of an ostentatious grief. There was no getting quit of the idea here, sepulchral as this spot even was, that they do indeed study effect in France. No one can visit the most celebrated places of Paris without being impressed with the conviction that the French are a sensual, sentimental people. We do not use the words invidiously; they may apply to the private life of France; but this we know, they are visible in all those social institutions which distinguish this people, and of which they are passionately proud. If you walk the gardens of the Tuileries, thronged with the young and innocent, the fact speaks to you unblushingly from the naked statues that everywhere meet the eye. In the gorgeous cathedrals, where poor, simple women kneel and tremble, the deep-toned organ repeats it; and even in the resting-places of the dead it develops itself in the shape of a morbid sentimentality, done up in bronze, and marble, and silver-gilt.

An old soldier, with a silver badge at his breast and a piece of crape round his arm, was engaged to point out to our party the spots rendered famous through the fame of those who slept beneath; and then we began our hurried survey of Pere La Chaise. Turning to the right, and leading us through the sepulchral mazes of the tombs, our guide led us to the most interesting and famous monument in the cemetery. It was the tomb of Heloise and Abelard, those lovers who died in the twelfth century, and whose history has invested love with a savor of sad romance, which renders their names watchwords to lovers still. The chapelle is built in the rectangular style of the thirteenth century, and was formed out of the ruins of the celebrated Abbey of the Paraclete, which was founded by Abelard, and of which Heloise was the first abbess. You can scarcely observe this tomb until you are close upon it, and then it is truly some

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what imposing. It is fourteen feet in length, eleven in breadth, and twenty-four feet high. An open-worked, crocheted pinnacle, six feet high, rises from the cruciform roof, and four smaller ones, beautifully sculptured, stands between the gables. Fourteen pillars, six feet in height, with richly foliaged capitals, support trifoliate arches with open spandrils and cornices wrought in flowers. The gables of the four fronts are pierced with trifoliated windows, and ornamented with sculptured figures, flowers, and medallion busts of Heliose and Abelard. In this chapelle is contained the monumental tomb which was built by Peter the Venerable to the memory of Abelard, in the priory of St. Marcel. A male form lies in a recumbent position with the hands clasped, and beside it is that of a female. These are Abelard and Heloise. There are ancient bas-reliefs round this tomb representative of the fathers of the church, and inscriptions describe the purpose and origin of the monument, its erection in the Museum of French Monuments, and its removal from thence to its present position. Several wreaths of everlasting flowers, some fresh and some withered by the storms and biting winds of winter, lay on the basement of the tomb. "These are supposed to be deposited there by disconsolate lovers," said the guide, with a polite smile to our artist; then turning to a lady who was of our party, he softly continued, "and it is said that all those disconsolates are

ladies, madam." "True love suffers and rejoices in secret," said our artist friend, solemnly; "it never ostentatiously seeks to give effect to its inward emotions by the display of flower-wreaths." "But true love in France wears a different face to that of true love in England." "It expo ses it more, at any rate," said the artist, as we passed onward to the tomb of Colbert, the celebrated French financier, who rose to the premiership of his native land from the shop of a ribbon merchant.

Winding through the walks, which are all thickly studded on each side with chapelles, tombs, and monuments, and curtained with lofty, shady trees, and, holding towards the right, we approach the place which contains within the smallest compass the most of the dust of the famous who are buried in Pere la Chaise. The tomb of Macdonald, the least cared-for but most faithful of Napoleon's marshals, stands here, near to that of Frochot, who purchased the grounds of Pere La Chaise, and appropriated them to their present purpose; and then a few paces leads you to the grave of Guillaume Dupuytren, the famous surgeon of the Hotel Dieu, who was born and nursed in the greatest poverty,

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VISIT TO THE PERE LA CHAISE AT PARIS.

and who obtained his education through the benevolence of a major in the army. Tearing through the rank grass, and winding round the tombs, which are overhung with the dark foliage of the arbor vitæ, you reach a point, to the left of the tomb of Dupuytren, which is pointed out as the burial-place of Marshal Ney. A simple iron railing surrounds the spot, which no stone marks, and a cypress spreads its branches over him.

"Foreigners manifest a great interest about this simple grave," said the guide, looking from one to another of our party with a half reproachful look. "And they blush, I hope, for the iron-hearted indifference that left him to his fate," said our artist, plucking a few leaves from the tree that waved over him. The guide bowed and smiled, and then replied-" They often speak of subscribing for a monument to him." In the same area with that of Ney was a simple stone monument, that had more interest for us than all Napoleon's generals put together; it was that of Benjamin Constant. Constant was born in Switzerland, and was educated as a physician at Edinburgh. He was the companion of Sir James Mackintosh, of Thomas Addis Emmett, of Malcolm Laing the Historian, of Hope, the Lord Advocate, and of Grant, Lord Seaforth. They were all members of the same debating club, when young men at the university; and when they had been a few years on the stage of life, how diverse were their fates! In the year 1801, Sir James Mackintosh was a supreme Judge in India-Malcolm Laing had distinguished himself as a historian, and was remarkable for his republican principles-Hope was Lord Advocate of Scotland-and Thomas Addis Emmett was confined at his instance in Fort George as a rebel convict-Lord Seaforth was the inmate of a mad-house-and Benjamin Constant was a member of the French Assembly. If there was virtue in that assembly it was resident in the soul of Constant, and his tomb shall ever be interesting to the lover of truth who wanders amongst the tombs of the Pere La Chaise.

An unassuming tomb marks the spot where reposes the head of George Cuvier, and a simple railing surrounds the little plot that is his restingplace. Close beside him, and with a tombstone of the same material and character, sleeps his beloved daughter Clementine. There is no ostentation, no obtrusiveness of grief or affection exhibited here. A China rose-tree blossoms over the grave of the daughter, but not a plant scatters its dew-drops over the great anatomist's bier. We picked up a few calcareous pebbles from Cuvier's tomb, and lifted a rose-leaf that

had fallen from the rose-tree of Clementine; and then passed on to behold the spot where slumbers the gentle, the sweet, the beautiful-hearted St. Pierre. It was something to stand beside the tomb of this poet of the heart, and to thank his shade for those saddened sunbeams of his spirit's world, "Paul and Virginia.”

What a solemn dirge there is for ever pealing amongst the trembling boughs of those long rows of sepulchral trees, if the heart of France could only hear it; what stern monitors of peace, and charity, and thought there are hovering over this great world of the dead, if the people of France could only see them! The youthful and the old, the grave and the gay, the famous and the obscure, the mighty and the mean, are sleeping silently here side by side. Those who in life lived at the very antipodes of thought, and sternly combated with each other on the field of action, are now at rest, and speaking to the present and the future of the folly of strife, and the vanity and vainglory of every earthly estate. Volney and Moliere, Lafontaine and Racine, Fourier the socialist and Gall the phrenologist, Lafitte the rich banker and Casimir Perier the statesman, the Consul Barras and the Duke of Messina, Talma the tragedian and Brongniart the geometrician, the "dead of June" and the dead of the cholera, are all slumbering peacefully side by side in the Pere La Chaise.

There is a platform spot to the left of the chapel which commands a splendid view of the city of Paris, and which view is said to be one of the most magnificent panoramas in the world. Below you lie these dark and sombre purlieus of Paris, the Faubourgs St. Martin and St. Antoine, with their grim masses of crooked streets, dark convents and hospitals, and grim and sadlooking prisons. You can see the waters of the Canal St. Martin glittering in the sun, and bearing on their surface the long dark boats that come laden with grain and other produce from La Villette. You can perceive also the little river Bievre, winding like a silver thread near the quarter of the Jardin des Plantes, and losing itself amongst the dwellings of the Boulevard de l'Hospital before it falls into the Seine, which rolls along beneath the Pont d'Austerlitz and the Pont de Bercy. Before you rise the towers of Notre Dame, and the lanterns of the Pantheon and Hotel des Invalides. The roofs of the Tuilleries and Palais Royale, the column of Luxor, and the triumphal arch of the Star, are seen far away amongst the stately dwellings and grovelike streets and squares of the Faubourg St. Honore. Rows of tall poplars, and linden-trees, and waving acacias, mark out the lines of the

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