most ample catalogue of Scottish testacea hitherto formed; containing 126 species of multivalve and bivalve, and 142 species of univalve shells: in all, 268. At the same meeting, the Secretary read a communication from George Montagu, Esq., of Knowel House, giving an account of a non-descript fish, 5 feet long, taken on the coast of Devonshire last summer, It is of the apodal order, and must constitute a new genus: Mr Montagu has bestowed on it the generic name of Ziphotheca, and the specific one tetradens.The communication likewise contained accurate descriptions of four rare species of English fishes; and was accompanied with correct and elegant drawings of these, as well as of the ziphotheca. At the same time, Mr Montagu presented the Society with copies of his Testacea Britannica and Supplement, 3 vols. 4to, with coloured plates, and of his Ornithological Dictionary, 2 vols. 8vo. Monthly Memoranda in Natural History. THE West - India Feb. 18. 1809. shrub Solandra grandiflora shewed its large and fragrant flowers in the stove at the Botanic Garden, Leith Walk. In Jamaica it climbs round forest trees, and is there known by the name of Peachcoloured Trumpet-flower. Its flower is very rarely to be seen in Scotland. The almost ruinous state of the hothouses and greenhouses in this Royal Garden was, about a year ago, commented on by us. No remedy having been applied, what was then bad, has now, of course, become worse. During the late severe weather, several uncommon plants have perished, and others have been much injured, thro' the insufficiency of the wood-work about the stoves. A fine camphor : tree, about 30 years old, and 15 feet high, was nearly cut off, in the time of the intense cold, by reason of the conservatory in which it is kept being incapable of excluding the frost, the timber work being rotten, and full of crevices. As an instance of the power of habit in rendering tender plants more hardy, I may mention, that the fine assafoetida plants (natives of Persia) which have for many years stood in the open ground in this garden, ripened their seeds last autumn; and that several young plants are now come up in the tan-stove from the seeds so ripened. Feb. 20. Snow drops and winter aconite are in flower in the borders. -. 25. The shoots of officinal rhubarb, and of common lovage, peep above ground. 28. From the 16th to the 20th of this month, very high winds, from W. and S. W., prevailed. From the former date to the end of the month the weather has been genial, and favourable to the labours of agriculture, which had been much retarded by the heavy snow-storms. March 3.- CANINE MADNESS.A proclamation was this day issued by the Magistrates of Edinburgh, announcing, that mad dogs had appeared in the city, and ordering the inhabitants to keep their dogs closely confined for six weeks. A very few remarks on this subject will not, we hope, be deemed out of place. With due deference to our city rulers, (who, doubtless, have been actuated by the best of motives,) we beg leave to observe, that such orders should never be issued without some previous accurate inquiry into the reality of the madness intended to be repressed. Because a large mastiff is seen running at full speed through the streets, lolling his tongue, biting at such dogs as interrupt his progress, and escaping as fast as he can into the country, we are not certainly warranted ranted to conclude that such animal is mad. The mastiff, we may easily suppose, has wandered to town from the country; he becomes alarmed on finding himself in the midst of a crowded street; he runs, and consequently soon lolls out his tongue; all the townbred curs yelp and bark at him as he passes along; no wonder if he snarls and snaps at them; and he very wisely makes the best of his way into the country again. We do not positively affirm that there was no foundation for the late alarm; but we do say, that we have not been able to find any satisfactory evidence of a truly rabid animal having appeared; and, however strange it may appear, we are persuaded, that the visit of a country bandog, in the circumstances above figured, is sufficient, owing to prepossession and prejudice, to alarm the Good Town, and give rise to the hue and cry of Mad Dog! It unfortunately happens, that popular fear and superstition, excited to the utmost pitch by proclamations by tuck of drum, advertisements blazoned in eve-. ry newspaper, and stuck on every lamp-post, quickly destroy all means of investigation as to the reality of the existence of the malady, -by devoting to instant death all and sundry the dogs bitten or suspected to be bitten by the mad dog. Were such anfortunate animals to be secured by a chain, and furnished with plenty of meat and drink, we should look with some confidence for their speedy reconvalescence. If the result should unexpectedly prove otherwise, no harm could ensue. As soon as unequivocal symptoms of hydrophobia (as, for instance, the horror at the sight of water) were evinced, we should agree to the signing of the death-warrant of the dog, unless perhaps in one or two cases for experiment. In the present instance, we have not heard of any mischief having happened to the lieges from the supposed mad dogs themselves; but it is alleged that some perfectly sane spaniels and ter riers have lost their lives on the occasion, through the zeal, not so much of the police-officers with their dog-destroying hatchets (for, it is believed, no reward for each cur's head was at this time held forth as an encouragement to their exertions) as of the apprentice-boys belonging to tanners and curriers in the neighbourhood, who are always ready to lend their unasked assistance in enforcing such orders, because they find their account in the value of the skins, which they are thus enabled with impunity to appropriate to themselves,--to the great vexation and distress of the owners of the animals, and their families. Upon the whole, it seems to remain a problem, whether we have escaped a dreadful malady by the vigilance of our Magistrates, favoured, we may suppose, by the coolness of the season of the year, (it being yet near six months to the dog-days); or whether we have not been guarding against an imaginary danger; and, by " strictly confining" our dogs, or pursuing them with hatchets and pitch-forks when they happened to get loose, have not, in effect, been rather lending our aid to engender disease where there was none before. March 7.-Furze, chickweed, and Lamium amplexicaule, show their blossoms plentifully. Vegetation is proceeding rapidly. It is about six weeks earlier than last year. - 18. - Whitlow-grass, Draba verna; March violet, Viola odorata; and both the common species of Tussilago (farfara and petasites) are now in flower. Daffodils and Cynoglossum omphalodes begin to flower in gardens. 24. The seed-time has hitherto been very propitious, as favourable indeed as the best that has occurred for the last twelve years. Some rain fell this day, sufficient only to lay the March dust which has been flying for a fortnight past. P. S. INDAGATOR received. N. : 166 Particulars of the SIEGE of SARA- vide resources for a siege, and also to GOSSA. (From Vaughan's Narrative.) THE walls of Saragossa appear to have been constructed merely to facilitate the means of levying taxes upon every article brought into the town for sale: the gates, which are nine in number, are of the most simple construction, and the alignement between them is, in some places, preserved by the mud-wall of a garden, in others by buildings, or by the remains of an old Moorish wall, which have a slight parapet, but without any platform even for musketry. The population of Saragossa may be estimated at about 60,000 souls; although the census taken in 1787 gives only 42,600. At the commencement of Palafox's command on the 25th of May, the neighbouring provinces of Navarre and Catalonia were possessed by the French; the passes of the Pyrenees leading directly into this kingdom were open, and Murat, with the main body of the French forces, was stationed at Madrid. Thus surrounded by his enemy, the General mustered the regular troops quartered at Saragossa, and found that they amounted to 220 men, and that the public treasury of the province could furnish him only with a sum equal to 20/. 16s. 8d. The Arragonese had hastily planted some cannon before the gates of the city, and also in favourable positions without the town, particularly at the Torrero, and upon the height near to it. On the 15th of June, the French sent a detachment against the outposts upon the canal, while their main body attempted to storm the city, by the gate called Portillo; but they were repulsed. As soon as the French were repulsed, General Palafox set out in order to collect re-inforcements, and pro place the rest of the kingdom in a state of defence, should the capital fall. He soon found frum 12 to 1400 soldiers who had escaped from Madrid, and he united with them a small division of militia stationed at Calataynd. With this force, in compliance with the urgent desire of his soldiers, he resolved to attack the French; but he was defeated, and the wreck of this little force retired to Calataynd, and afterwards, with great difficulty, threw themselves into Saragossa. About the last day of June, a powder magazine, a very strong buil. ding in the heart of the city of Saragossa, blew up, and in a moment nearly a whole street was reduced to a heap of ruins: the inhabitants of Saragossa had scarcely recovered from their consternation at this fatal, and irreparable loss, and from the labour of extricating their fellow-citizens from the ruins of their houses, when the French, who had received mortars, howitzers, and cannon, (12 pounders, of sufficient calibre for the mudwalls of Saragossa) opened a destructive fire upon the city. The attack of the enemy seemed to be directed principally against the gate called Portillo, and the castle near it without the walls, and which is nothing more than a square building made use of as a prison, and surrounded by a deep ditch. The sandbag battery before the gate of Portillo was gallantly defended by the Arragonese. It was several times destroyed, and as often re-constructed under the fire of the enemy. The carnage in this battery, throughout the day, was truly terrible. It was here, that an act of heroism was performed by a female, to which history scarcely affords a parallel. Augustina Zaragoza, about 22 years of age, a handsome woman, of the lower class of the people, whilst performing her duty of carrying refreshments to the gates, gates, arrived at the battery of the Portillo, at the very moment when the French fire had absolutely destroyed every person that was stationed in it. The citizens, and soldiers, for the moment hesitated to re-man the guns; Augustina rushed forward over the wounded and slain, snatched a match from the hand of a dead artil leryman, and fired off a 26-pounder, then jumping upon the gun, made a solemn vow never to quit it alive during the siege, and having stimulated her fellow-citizens by this daring intrepidity to fresh exertions, they instantly rushed to the battery, and again opened a tremendous fire upon the enemy. When the writer of these pages saw this heroine of Saragossa, she had a small shield of honour embroidered upon the sleeve of her gown, with " Saragossa," inscribed upon it, and was receiving a pension from the government and the daily pay of an artilleryman. Defeated in various attacks, the enemy proceeded to invest the place still more closely. Having cut off the only communication by which the besieged could receive any supplies, either of provisions or ammunition, the active and intelligent General, in this critical situation, caused corn-mills, worked by horses, to be established in various parts of the city, and ordered the monks to be employed under skilful directors in manufacturing gunpowder. All the sulphur which the place afforded was put into immediate requisition, the earth of the streets was carefully washed in order to furnish saltpetre; and charcoal was made of the stalks of hemp, which, in that part of Spain, grows to a very unusual size; and on this simple foundation there has been formed since the siege a regular manufactory of gunpowder, which yields thirteen arrobas of Castile per day, or 325 pounds of twelve ounces. On the night of the 2d of August, and on the following day, the French bombarded Saragossa from their batteries opposite the gate of the Carmen. A foundling hospital, which contained the sick and wounded, who, from time to time, had been conveyed there during the siege, unfortunately caught fire, and was rapidly consumed, During this dreadful calamity, the exertions of every description of people were almost unparalleled; all attention to private property was instantly abandoned, and every body was seen hastening to the relief of the sick and helpless children who occupied the building; but in this act of humanity none were more conspicuous than the women, who persisted in their humane exertions, equally undaunted by the shot and shells of the enemy, and the flames of the building before them. On the 4th of August, the French opened a tremendous fire upon this quarter of the city, and in an instant the mud-walls opposite to their batteries vanished, and the splendid convent of the Santa Engracia was on fire, and tottering in ruins. The French columns immediately availed themselves of this entrance, to rush into the city; and after a severe and sanguinary conflict, penetrating to the Calle de Cozo, nearly in the centre of the town, were in possession, before the day closed, of one half of Saragossa. The French General immediately demanded the capitulation in the following note :Quarter General-Santa Engracia. The Capitulation. French prisoners, with a rope attached to them, amidst the dead and dying, to remove the bodies of their countrymen, and bring them in for burial, The batteries of the contending parties were so close to each other, that, in one instance, a Spaniard crept from his own side, and insinuating himself under the intermediate bodies, of the dead, attached a rope to one of the French cannon; in the struggle which ensued, the rope broke, and the Arragonese were deprived of their prize, at the very moment that they thought themselves secure of it. A council of war, that was held on the 8th, came to the following evermemorable resolves :-' that those quarters of the city in which the Arragonese yet maintained themselves, should continue to be defended with the same firmness which had hitherto been so conspicuous: should the enemy at last prevail, the people were immediately to retire by the bridge over the Ebro into the suburbs, and having destroyed the bridge, to defend the suburbs till they perished. This resolution of the General and his Officers was received by the people with the loudest acclamations. For eleven successive days, the most: sanguinary conflict was continued from street to street, from house to house, and from room to room, (the enraged populace always gaining by degrees upon the disciplined troops of the French) until the space occupied by the enemy was gradually reduced to about one-eighth part of the city. The spirit displayed by the men was se conded in the most admirable manner by the women of Saragossa; the Countess Burita, a lady of great rank in that country, formed a corps of woinen for the relief of the wounded, and for the purpose of carrying provisions and wine to the soldiers. Many persons of the most unquestionable veracity in Saragossa, declare, that they have frequently seen this young, delicate, and beautiful woman, coolly attending to the duties she had prescribed to herself, in the midst of the most tremendous fire of shot and shells; nor were they even able to perceive, from the first moment, that she entered into these novel scenes, that the idea of personal danger could produce upon her the slightest effect, or bend her from her benevolent and patriotic purpose. The loss of women and boys during the siege was very great, and fully proportionate to that of men; in fact, they were always the most forward; and the difficulty was to teach them a prudent and proper sense of their danger. During the night of the 13th of August the French fire was particularly destructive, and when their batteries ceased, flames were observed to burst out in many parts of the buildings in their possession; and on the morning of the 14th, to the great surprise of the Arragonese, their columns were seen at a distance retreating. over the plain, on the road to PampeJona. It is a very singular fact to add, that though the writer of these few pages saw in Saragossa many a parent who had lost his children, and many a man reduced from competence to poverty, he literally did not meet with one human being who uttered the slightest complaint: every feeling seemed to be swallowed up in the memory of what they had recently done, and in a just hatred of the French. This narrative contains other interesting particulars, which recommend it to general perusal. Our readers are aware, that there has been a subsequent siege of Saragossa, and that its former successful defence has been almost eclipsed by the glories of its fall. A subscription, we believe, has been opened in London for the relief of the sufferers in the siege... Memoirs |