skies, where I could fancy the Great One had taken his stand, and was solemnising on the waywardness of man and brute, below, as I myself had often look’d at the ants tumbling over each other in their eagerness, though in a way and a fashion more suited to His mightiness and power. Knowledge! It is his plaything. Say, you who think it so easy to climb into the judgment-seat above, can you tell me any thing of the beginning and the end? Nay, you’re a dealer in ailings and cures: what is life, and what is death? Why does the eagle live so long, and why is the time of the butterfly so short? Tell me a simpler thing: why is this hound so uneasy, while you, who have passed your days in looking into books, can see no reason to be disturbed?”

The Doctor, who had been a little astounded by the dignity and energy of the old man, drew a long breath, like a sullen wrestler who is just released from the throttling grasp of his antagonist, and seized on the opportunity of the pause to reply—

“It is his instinct.”

“And what is the gift of instinct?”

“An inferior gradation of reason. A sort of mysterious combination of thought and matter.”

“And what is that which you call thought?”

“Venerable venator, this is a method of reasoning which sets at nought the uses of definitions, and such as I do assure you is not at all tolerated in the schools.”

“Then is there more cunning in your schools than I had thought, for it is a certain method of showing them their vanity,” returned the trapper, suddenly abandoning a discussion, from which the naturalist was just beginning to anticipate great delight, by turning to his dog, whose restlessness he attempted to appease by playing with his ears. “This is foolish, Hector; more like an untrained pup than a sensible hound; one who has got his education by hard experience, and not by nosing over the trails of other dogs, as a boy in the settlements follows on the track of his masters, be-it right or be it wrong. Well, friend; you who can do so much, are you equal to looking into the thicket? or must I go in myself?”

The Doctor again assumed his air of resolution, and, without further parlance, proceeded to do as desired. The dogs were so far restrained, by the remonstrances of the old man, as to confine their noise to low but often-repeated whinings. When they saw the naturalist advance, the pup, however, broke through all restraint, and made a swift circuit around his person, scenting the earth as he proceeded, and then, returning to his companion, he howled aloud.

“The squatter and his brood have left a strong scent on the earth,” said the old man, watching as he spoke for some signal from his learned pioneer to follow; I hope yonder school-bred man knows enough to remember the errand on which I have sent him.”

Doctor Battius had already disappeared in the bushes, and-the trapper was beginning-to betray additional evidences of impatience, when the person of the former was seen retiring-from the thicket backwards, with his face fastened on the place he had just left, as if his look was bound in the thraldom of some charm.

“Here is something skeery, by the wildness of the creatur’s countenance!” exclaimed the old man, relinquishing his hold of Hector, and moving stoutly to the side of the totally unconscious naturalist. “How is it, friend; have you found a new leaf in your book of wisdom?”

“It is a basilisk!” muttered the Doctor, whose altered visage betrayed the utter confusion which beset his faculties. “An animal of the order, serpens. I had thought its attributes were fabulous, but mighty nature is equal to all that man can imagine!”