is strangled. The stealing of a smaller sum is punished by a severe bastinado; and the criminal is obliged besides to make restitution. If he have not the means, he is condemned, with his wife and children, to hard labour for the Government. Mandarins of a superior rank, convicted of the neglect of their duty, are degraded two degrees, and lose two years' salary. All sums of money stolen from the public coffers must be made good by the chiefs of the tribunals where the robbery was committed, and by those who are employed to discover the thieves, if their search be fruitless. Whoever fells trees, mows hay, sows corn, or feeds his cattle, in places where the Emperor, Princes, and other distinguished persons are buried, receives eighty blows with a stick. All persons belonging to convents or temples, who suffer females to enter them for the purpose of prayer, military persons who sell effects belonging to the Government, such as arms, clothing, &c., are condemned to a hundred blows. A deserter from the army in the field, if an officer, receives a hundred blows; a private suffers death. He who voluntarily takes the place of another, when the army is on its march, which is pretty common in China, is beaten without mercy. At the end of every year the chiefs are obliged to examine those under them: any of the latter, who has not improved his knowledge in the affairs of his own department, is punished; if he have an office, with the loss of a month's salary; if he have none, with forty blows. A dismissed Mandarin who meddles in the affairs of Government, has eighty blows, and pays a fine of two pounds of silver. Superiors who recommend the promotion of a man without merit, in preference to one more worthy, receive eighty blows. A chief who, contrary to law, goes in person to the place where a crime has been committed, instead of sending a person to investigate it, suffers a hundred blows. Delays in executing the business of Government are punished with ten blows every day, up to eighty blows. A physician who writes a prescription improperly gets a hundred blows. A servant who makes a noise in the imperial palace, and does not behave with decorum, is punished with a hundred blows, and his master with fifty. If a woman buys or sells salt clandestinely, her husband or her son is beaten; salt being a public monopoly. If the husband be at a distance, or the son a minor, she receives the hundred blows, and pays a fine in money. A peasant who does not observe the distinction of ranks, when sitting down to table, is punished with five blows. The Chinese use, for the infliction of corporal punishment, bamboo canes, at least four or five feet long, and about two inches thick. Less serious transgressions are punished by boxes on the ear, the number of which is prescribed by the law; but it depends on the executioner to render this strange punishment more or less painful, according as he is bribed. Prisoners have fastened to their necks a piece of wood, three feet square, and weighing above six pounds: this weight is increased according to the degree of the crime. This kind of punishment is chiefly inflicted upon swindlers, or insolvent debtors; these boards then weigh from fifty to one hundred pounds; the head of the criminal alone is then visible, and looks as if placed upon a large dish: he cannot possibly raise his hand to his mouth, and must be fed by others. Torture is in frequent use in China; but the law exempts from it princes, members of illustrious families, distinguished literati, citizens of the first class, and such persons as have rendered important services to the empire. A great defect in the Chinese legislation is, the facility which it affords to compound for corporal punishment by money for instance, a person condemned to receive from sixty to a hundred blows, pays from four to seven ounces of silver, and a certain quantity of wheat; one year's hard labour, and sixty blows may be bought off for about fourteen ounces of silver, and a certain quantity of corn. Very old persons, minors, and cripples, pay about the value of sixpence for ten blows. The wife of a person in office may be excused from ten blows, on payment of about tenpence. ment, if he pays a pound of silver. Old people, ninety years of age, or children under seven years, do not undergo corporal punishment, except in cases of treason and conspiracy. It is also a custom permitted among the Chinese, for a condemned person to pay another to suffer the punishment in his stead. This extends even to the penalty of death.— Timkowski's Travels of the Russian Mission to China. THE COUGAR. THE Cougar is the largest animal of the cat kind found in North-America, and has occasionally received the name of the American lion, from the similarity of its proportions and colour to the lion of the old world. It is very little inferior in size, and the qualities of magnanimity, clemency, and generosity attributed to the king of beasts. The lion, however lordly, conceals himself near places where deer and other animals come to drink, and springs upon them from his ambush. Having feeble sight, and being unfit for the chase, he follows after dogs and other animals which run down buffaloes, deer, &c., and drives them off to gorge upon their prey. He is called generous, because he does not attack and devour men, unless he is hungry; and magnanimous, because he retires slowly, facing his enemies. He does not kill swift animals, because they can outrun him. He has not a thousandth part of the dignity of character possessed by the elephant. With his great strength and dreadful claws he is no match for the great tiger of Africa. The cougar is about one third less than the lion in size; and has no mane, nor tuft at the extremity of his tail. He is clothed with a soft and close hair, and occasional patches of a deep reddish tint, which disappear in his advanced age. The head has inany gray hairs upon it. The whiskers are white, and the end of the tail black. Males and females are alike in colour and covering. The cougar, at an early period, was distributed over the warm and temperate regions of this continent, and is still found in the southern, middle, and north-western parts of the North-American Union. It is a savage and destructive animal, yet timid and cautious. In ferocity, it is quite equal to most of its kindred species, and kills small animals for the sake of drinking their blood. When pressed by hunger, it attacks large animals, though not always with success. When the cougar seizes a sheep, or calf, it is by the throat; and then, flinging the victim over its back, it dashes off with great ease and celerity, to devour it at leisure. Deer, hogs, sheep, and calves are destroyed by the cougar whenever they are within reach. They climb or rather spring up large trees with surprising facility and vigour; and in that way are enabled, by dropping suddenly upon deer and other quadrupeds, to secure prey which it would be impossible for them to overcome in any other way. In the day-time the cougar is seldom seen; but its peculiar cry frequently thrills the experienced traveller with horror, while camping in the forest at night; or he is startled to hear the cautious approaches of the animal, stealing step by step toward him, over the crackling leaves and brush, in the expectation of springing on an unguarded or sleeping victim, whom nothing but a rapid flight can save. This animal is still found occasionally in the remote and thinly-settled parts of Pennsylvania. Two were killed in Centre county, by some hunters, as late as 1825. They are more numerous, however, farther west. One which was killed in Kentucky, in 1819, measured four feet and five inches from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail, and two feet seven inches in height. Around the body it measured two feet and a half. NOTICES OF ANIMATED AND VEGETABLE NATURE. FOR APRIL, 1833. "See, April comes! a primrose coronal Like a young widow, beautiful in tears, 1st. WEEK. Moths are seen; frogs spawn; the pheasant crows; brilliant and numerous blossoms by the sides of ponds, brooks, ditches, &c. Daffodils are seen in similar situations, and periwinkles clothe shady banks with their fine evergreen leaves and large purple flowers. The sloe and holly blossom in the hedges; the birch and weeping willow are in leaf. 2d Week. The summer warblers return; swallows appear; the hen sits; various birds construct their nests; the meloe is seen feeding on the ranunculus: the deathwatch-beetles are heard. These insects woo one another by their singular ticking, which is performed by striking their foreheads seven or eight times together on old paper, wood, &c. Ground-ivy, the wood-anemone and the laburnum are in flower; raspberries and blackberries are in leaf, and the peach-trees in blossom. 3d Week. The black-bird, thrush, sky-lark, and various other birds, sing delightfully. 66 And when the restless day Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela charms The listening groves, teaching the night His praise." The plum, cherry, sponge-laurel, and wood-sorrel, are in flower; the walnut and chesnut are in leaf. 4th Week. The redstarts sing on the tops of trees; the cuckoo is heard, and the white-throat warbles. "The sonorous black-cap in the ivy-bush, Of warblers, pours his sweet melodious strain." The primrose, cowslip, polyanthus, the beautiful germanderspeedwell, and many other plants, are in flower. Greenwich, Kent. WILLIAM ROGERSON. BRIEF ASTRONOMICAL NOTICES, FOR APRIL, 1833. "These are thy glorious works, thou Source of good! Thine. and upheld by thy paternal care, This universal frame, thus wondrous fair; THE SUN rises on the 1st at thirty-eight minutes past five, and sets at thirty-one minutes after six: on the 12th he rises at thirteen minutes past five, and sets at fifty minutes after six. The Sun enters the sign Taurus on the 20th: on the 25th he rises at fortysix minutes past four, and sets at eleven minutes after seven. The Moon is full on the 4th, at forty-three minutes past two in the afternoon she rises on the 6th at ten minutes past nine, and on the 8th at half-past eleven, at night. The Moon enters on her last quarter on the 11th, at six minutes after twelve at night; and rises on the 13th at three o'clock in the morning. The Moon changes |