fifty years, it was found that the new moon was the time at which the least number of changes happened.

Among the ancients it was a prevalent belief, that, if on the third day of the new moon the horns were sharp and well defined, the sky would continue serene and clear during the whole month. The same opinion is current at the present day, among a large class of people.

There may be some reason in this sign; not, however, because it depends upon the moon, but on the state of the atmosphere through which we see the moon; as may readily be seen through a good telescope. When the atmosphere is troubled and not settled, it will cause the horns to be enlarged. Another idea prevalent among some of our citizens, is, that when the crescent of the new moon is perpendicular, or nearly so, to the horizon, the month will be a wet one. This notion is said to have been received from the aborigines of our country, who had a saying, that if a powder horn could not be hung upon the lower horn of the moon, it would be a wet month. The position of the crescent with respect to the horizon, depends upon the relative situations of the sun, moon and earth; and, as all situations are periodical and in some degree regular, there should be regular periodical rains, which is not the case.

Many other sayings and signs of the same nature might be mentioned, which are more or less extensively believed. But they all had their origin in the ignorance and superstition of former times, and are now totally disregarded, excepting by the very ignorant and credulous.

The influence of the moon, in the opinion of many, is not confined to the changes of the weather. It is a matter of serious belief among many of our husbandmen, that the moon has a direct influence on the growth of vegetables. Some kind of seeds must be sown in the old of the moon, others in the new, in order to produce a good crop. It is manifest on a little reflection, that all such notions are not founded upon facts. Because the new or old moons do not always happen at the same time of the season every year, but during a course of nineteen years, they perform a complete revolution; and the growth of vegetables depends upon the season, the whole season,

.

and not on seven days of it, which is the length of each phase of the moon.

Many people believe that the light of the moon has a material influence upon organic life; many believe that the light of the moon at certain seasons of the year, is very injurious to many kinds of plants; but modern science has shown that the effect which was supposed to be owing to the light of the moon, is in fact produced by the different capacities of bodies for radiating heat. The effect of freezing, thought by some to be produced by the light of the moon, is accounted for in the following manner. Any body exposed to the light of the moon, that is, to a clear sky, becomes, in consequence of the radiation of its heat, colder than the surrounding air. We cannot, therefore, judge of the degree of cold with which a plant is affected during the night, by the temperature of the surrounding air; for a plant, or tender shoot, may be frozen, although the air remains several degrees above the freezing point.

The light of the moon is supposed also, by many, to darken the human complexion. By direct experiment this has been found incorrect.

The influence of the moon on the human body, particularly in a diseased state, is a notion as old as the world itself; and we have met with some few who believe in the action of the moon on the human body in all conditions, particularly on the blood--believing that if a person should have a limb amputated when the moon was not in the right place, they would inevitably bleed to death. Happily, such superstitious ideas are not very common.

Hippocrates was so firm a believer in the influence of the stars and moon on the human body, that he advises no physician to be trusted who is ignorant of Astronomy.

Galen was a zealous believer in the same doctrine; and from him has arisen the notions about critical days in diseases as the seventh, fourteenth and twenty-first days of fevers, &c. These are all manifestly supposed to be connected with the phases of the moon.

Many physicians of great repute in modern times, have held the same views, as Mead, Hoffman, Sauvage, &c.; but names should not be received for facts. The whole

doctrine of the lunar action is founded upon anological reasoning. Particular states of the weather may have accompanied particular phases of the moon, for twenty successive moons, and then failed in one instance: this single failure destroys the universality of the law, just as effectually as a hundred failures. The same remarks apply to the other effects, said to be produced by the moon. In conclusion, we think it might be shown, that all the opinions now received respecting the influence of the moon, are the remains of the senseless jargon of the Astrologers. Science a long time since dissipated the whole fabric of Necromancy, Astrology, Signs, &c.; but so long as science is confined to the few, and its lights concealed under a bushel, so long must the many be trammelled by old and superstitious notions. Let the wise, then, unseal their books, divest their works of the foreign and technical dress in which they are clothed, and show them to the people, in a more modernized attire, and thus drive error and superstition out of our land, and out of the world.

[From the Transactions of the N. Y. Lit. and Phil. Society.]

ORNITHOLOGY.

THE Science of Ornithology is involved in considerable difficulty and confusion. The arrangement of animals, according to the principles of the Linnæan system, is an admirable contrivance to extricate the science of zoology from the darkness which surrounds it. The classes and orders of the great naturalist are arbitrary; the genera and species are natural; but when we consider that the general characters of birds are taken from the bill, tongue, nostrils, cere, caruncles, and other naked parts-and that the characters of the species are derived principally from the plumage and habitudes, we must be sensible that here is a wide field for a difference of opinion. Besides, the nomenclature adopted, in endeavoring to compress the descriptions of animals within the shortest compass, is frequently a mystery to most readers. Take, for instance, an account of a bird by Linnæus, Latham, or Pennant,

and it will require considerable industry to penetrate the exact meaning of the author. The generic characters frequently run so closely into each other, that it is no easy task to make the appropriate arrangement. The plumage of birds varies according to seasons, to age, and to climate, and their manners assume a different appearance at different times, and in different countries. The sexes exhibit,

almost invariably, a diversity. The male is frequently smaller than the female, and is generally arrayed in a more beautiful dress. Genera are confounded together; varieties are represented as distinct species; the male is placed in a different species from his mate, and the same bird, at different ages and seasons, is considered a different species. The names of birds vary in different places.

In the same district of country the same bird frequently goes by different appellations, and the scientific name is also not uniform; Linnæus, Brisson, and Buffon, oftentimes disagree. We may add to this, the absurd custom adopted in this country of naming our birds after those in Europe, to which they are supposed to have some likeness, although, in most respects, they are dissimilar.

There are three modes in which we may obtain a knowledge of birds. From personal observation of these animals in their natural state-from preserved subjects in cabinets of natural history, and from books. The first is undoubtedly preferable, so far as it goes; but it is necessarily limited by our range of travelling. The second supplies this defect, but it is liable to this great objection; the subjects are often not only imperfectly prepared in the first instance, but generally decay and dissolve. In Cayenne, which has furnished more subjects for the cabinets of European naturalists than any other country, the birds are steeped in spirits for a long time, and dried by the heat of an oven. This must undoubtedly, in many instances, sully the glossy beauty of their plumage, and give them an appearance different from their natural one. Books must be resorted to in order to complete and extend our knowledge; but to place our sole reliance on them would be as absurd as to attempt to attain a knowledge of mankind by the meditations of contemplative retirement.

[Furnished for the Tracts and Lyceum.]

ANIMAL MECHANISM.

6

A WORK will soon be issued, called the ANATOMICAL CLASS BOOK,' designed expressly for the use of schools. It is freed as much as possible from technicalities, and therefore adapted to the comprehension of youth. It abounds with engravings, illustrative of the text. The plate on the opposite page is taken from page 82 of the book in question, which is introduced here in order to convey some general idea of the labor bestowed upon the volume.

The letters refer to the names of the muscles. They are beautifully and truly represented, as they exist on every man, woman and child. adb, is a muscle, called trapezius-laying like a cape over the back of the neck and shoulder. There is one over each shoulder blade, united in the middle, over the bones of the back. By the contraction of the upper portion, marked a, the head is drawn back; by the contraction of the side portion, a, the shoulders are drawn together. By the side of the neck, i is the sterno cleido mastoid muscle, which brings the head forward, and by counteracting the action of the trapezius, at a, maintains the head in a vertical position. Over the shoulder joint, and reaching to the middle of the arm, is the deltoid muscle, marked h, which raises the limb to a horizontal line: ƒ is the latissimus dorsi, which brings the hand and arm down forcibly, as in striking with a hammer. At c is the joint: kem is the infra spinatus, which assists in rolling the arm, and also pulls away the covering of the joint, so that it may not be pinched between the ends of the bones, in motions of the shoulder.

Under n n nn, are slips which fasten the latissimus to the ribs; and g and 7, is the point where the great muscles or moving power of the lower limbs meet the broad muscle of the arm, which has been described.

From time to time, we shall introduce both plates and extracts, which we trust will be interesting as well as valuable to our readers.