mode of costume. We know of one lady who has never altered her style
of dress since she was eighteen. The consequence is that every ten
years or so the fashions come round to her, and for a brief period she
is _à la mode_. Never having made any concessions to the abominations
of crinoline or false hair, she is at the present time more orthodox
than she appeared five years ago. Every time has had its eccentricities
in this respect, and Mr Timbs shews us a certain Miss Banks, who died
in 1818, and in plain terms looked a 'regular guy.' She was a lady
of good position, being the sister of Sir Joseph Banks. Her costume
consisted of a Barcelona quilted petticoat, which had a hole on each
side, for the convenience of rummaging two immense pockets stuffed
with books of all sizes, which did not add to the symmetry of her
already large proportions. In this guise she went about, followed by a
footman carrying a cane, as tall as his mistress, or her luggage when
accompanying her on a journey. She was the originator of the words
_Hightum_, _Tightum_, and _Scrub_, which so many ladies are fond of
applying in the order of precedence to their wearing apparel. These
words Miss Banks invented to distinguish three dresses she had made for
herself at the same time, and all alike; the first for best, the second
for occasional, and the third for daily wear.
While on feminine eccentricities we must record some that we have
met with in our own day. So convinced is one elderly married lady of
the peculating propensities of all lodging-house menials, that after
each meal a curious scene takes place in her room. Every article,
such as her tea-caddy, sugar-basin, jam-pot, &c., which she has had
occasion to use during the meal, is placed on the table, on which
stand a gum-bottle, a brush, and several long strips of paper. She then
proceeds to gum up her property. A strip of paper is gummed round the
opening to the tea-caddy; the pot of preserve is similarly secured,
together with all else that is likely to attract that lawless fly the
lodging-house servant! We know of another lady who for years has lived
with only the light of gas or candle in her rooms. She imagines that
air and daylight are injurious to her sight, and her rooms are little
better than well-furnished tombs, into which no chink of light or
breath of heaven is suffered to intrude.
Mr Timbs introduces us to a lady equally eccentric in her ideas about
water. Lady Lewson of Clerkenwell objected totally to washing either
her house or her person. She considered water to be the root of all
malady, in the unnecessary way people expose themselves to the chills
caught by frequent ablution! And as for health--was she not a living
instance that a morning tub is all nonsense, for she was one hundred
and sixteen years old when she died! For the greater part of her life
she never dipped her face into water, using hog's-lard instead, to
soften her skin. Although large and well furnished, her house, like her
person, was never washed and but rarely swept.
We remember an amusing instance of French respect for cold water, in
the speech of a French gentleman, married to an English lady of our
acquaintance who used to indulge in a bath morning and evening; a
custom so astounding to her husband that he exclaimed in our hearing:
'She does not use water--she _ab_uses it.'
Eccentricity often displays itself in an inordinate affection for
animals and a singular manner of treating them. An instance of this was
the late Earl of Bridgewater, who now comes before us with his family
of performing dogs. He lived in Paris during the last century, where
the circumstances we narrate took place. He was a miserable-looking
little man, unable to walk without the support of two lackeys. He had
an immense fortune, which he spent in gratifying every caprice. Was
a book lent him? It was regarded as the representative of its owner,
and returned in the earl's landau, occupying the place of honour
and attended by four footmen in costly livery, who handed it to the
astonished owner. His carriage was frequently to be seen filled with
dogs, his special pets. On the feet of these dogs he bestowed as much
attention as though they were unfortunate human beings; he ordered
them boots, for which he paid as dearly as for his own. Not caring to
entertain his own kind at his table, few people dined with him. Still,
covers were daily laid for a dozen, served by suitable attendants. At
this table he received, and dined with no less than twelve favourite
dogs, who seemed to comprehend the compliment paid them, as they
occupied their chairs with decorum, each with its white napkin tied
round its neck. They were so trained, that should any, by an instinct
of appetite, transgress any rule of good-manners, he was banished from
the table, and degraded to an antechamber, where he picked his bone
in mortification; his place remaining empty until he had earned his
master's pardon.
There are some whose eccentricity takes the form of hatred of society.
Of this number was the Honourable Henry Cavendish, a man of great
learning and enormous fortune, who earned the title of 'Woman-hating
Cavendish,' as he would never see a woman if he could avoid it. If a
female servant was unlucky enough to shew herself, she was instantly
dismissed. He was compelled to employ a housekeeper, but all their
communications were carried on by correspondence. His ideas of dining
were restricted to legs of mutton only. On one occasion when his
housekeeper suggested that one leg of mutton would not be sufficient
for a party invited, he met the difficulty by ordering _two_!
A number of eccentricities are displayed by people in their burial
bequests. A certain Dr Fidge, a physician of the old school, converted
a favourite boat into a coffin, which he kept under his bed for many
years in readiness. When death drew near, he begged his nurse to pull
his legs straight and place him as a dead man, as it would _save her
trouble afterwards_, saying which he comfortably departed. Job Orton, a
publican of the Bell Inn, Kidderminster, had his tombstone with epitaph
erected in the parish church. His coffin was also built and ready for
him; but until he was ready for it he used it as a wine-bin. Major
Peter Laballiere of Box Hill, Dorking, selected a spot for his burial,
which he directed should be without church rites, and _head downwards_;
in order that, 'as the world was in his opinion topsy-turvy, he might
come right end up at last!' But a certain Jack Fuller caps even the
major, for he left directions that he was to be buried in a _pyramidal_
mausoleum in Brightling churchyard, Sussex; giving as his reason for
selecting to be embalmed in stone _above_ ground, his unwillingness to
be eaten by his relatives--a process he considered inevitable if buried
in the ordinary manner, for 'The worms,' he declares, 'would eat me;
the ducks would eat the worms; and my relations would eat the ducks.'
Of all eccentricities, those displayed by misers are the most notable
and repulsive. To dwell upon them at any length is neither pleasant
nor interesting; it is only where parsimony and genius are allied that
one pauses to examine the specimen. Let us now take a brief survey of
Nollekens the sculptor, in whom these opposites were met. Descended
from a miserly stock, he did not fall short of his ancestry in his
love of money, and it first became apparent in a filthy mode of living
while a student at Rome. He married a woman even more parsimonious than
himself, and their housekeeping was pitiful. Hatred of light is an
observable trait with most misers; and over their coals and candles the
Nollekens were scrupulously economical; the former, Nollekens counted
with his own hands. The candles were never lighted at the commencement
of the evening; and if a knock were heard at the door, it was not
answered until repeated, in case the first should prove a runaway,
and the candle be wasted! A flat candlestick served them for ordinary
purposes, and by carefully extinguishing them when company went, they
made a pair of moulds last a whole year!
Before his marriage, Nollekens had an unfortunate little servant called
Bronze, whose appetite he so feared that he placed her on board-wages,
and gave her only just enough money to furnish him with food each day,
which he took care to consume. Bronze with rare patience, for which
we cannot account, continued to serve after her master was married,
and declared that never had she seen a jack-towel in their house and
never had she washed with soap! Mrs Nollekens never went to any but a
second-hand shop for their wearing apparel and shoes, and their charity
was of the same second-hand nature, as when Mrs Nollekens directed the
maid to give the 'bone with little or no meat on it' to two starving
men who applied for relief. If a present of a leveret was sent them,
they made it serve two dinners for four people. The sculptor grew more
generous before death, his parsimonious partner having gone first, as
though he strove by sundry spasmodic gifts to atone for the avarice of
a life. If these details are as unsavoury to some as to ourselves, we
only justify their narration on the ground stated, that the qualities
they set forth were found existing in a genius.
Did time permit we should like to linger over those notable eccentrics,
Porson, Horne Tooke, Peter Pindar (Dr Wolcot), and others; but we can
only give a characteristic anecdote or two. Porson, the cleverest and
most erratic of creatures, was the victim of abstraction to an extent
that rendered him forgetful at times to eat. 'Will you not stay and
dine,' asked Rogers the poet. 'Thank you; no; I dined _yesterday_!'
he replied. Dr Parr asked him before a large assembly what he thought
about the introduction of moral and physical evil into the world.
'Why, doctor,' said Porson, 'I think we should have done very well
without them.' And it makes us laugh to hear an ignorant person, who
was anxious to get into conversation with him, ask, if Captain Cook
was killed in his _first_ voyage. 'I believe he was,' answers Porson;
'though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered on a second!'
Tooke began life with a joke, telling every one that he was the son
of a Turkey merchant; by which name he defined his father's trade of
poulterer. His ready wit was never at a loss; and it is to him we are
indebted for the following well-known joke. 'Now, young man,' said an
uncle to him one day, giving him good advice, 'as you are settled in
town I would advise you to take a wife.' 'With all my heart, sir,'
replied Tooke; 'whose wife shall I take?'
Peter Pindar boasted that he was the only man that ever outwitted a
publisher. Being a popular writer, his works brought him a good income.
His publisher wishing to purchase the copyright and print a collected
edition, made him an offer in cash. In order, however, to drive a
good bargain, Pindar feigned to be in very bad health, declaring he
could not live long; and every time the publisher came to see him he
acted the invalid to such perfection that he got a handsome _annuity_,
which, to the disgust of the publisher, he lived to enjoy until the
unconscionable age of eighty-one.
We leave a number of our eccentric friends with regret. There was
Curtis, whom we do not care to accompany in his search after the
horrible and his passion for convicts and executions. There was Dr
Fordyce, whose eccentricity in the matter of food is a study; he
lived for years on one meal a day only, but a meal so enormous that
we wonder, as we read the quantities, how he ever lived to repeat it
daily for twenty years. We can only now recommend those who have been
interested so far, to supply our deficiencies by going to the source
from whence we have gathered the matter for this brief notice.
SNAKE-INCUBATION.
The Zoological Gardens of London, always attractive, now and then
acquire even additional interest by the arrival of some new inmate,
or the occurrence of some rare event among those already established
there. Last year the Prince of Wales's Indian collection of animals,
the year before the snake-eating snake, drew extra crowds; and of late
the anaconda from Brazil has rendered herself popular by bringing
forth a family of snakelings; though, owing to the effects of her
long journey and close imprisonment, her young ones were dead. A few
years ago the largest snake in the Gardens was an African python, that
deposited above one hundred eggs in a nest of moss which had been
supplied to her; and as some writers about snakes had told us that the
python incubates her eggs, and that only this kind exhibits any such
maternal instinct, she also drew crowds of the curious.
The pythoness whose proceedings we are about to relate, having
deposited her eggs, arranged them in a level mass and then coiled
herself around and over them; sometimes they could be just discovered
between her coils, and sometimes she covered them entirely. Heat
combined with moisture are essential to the development of snakes'
eggs; and in the choice of a spot in which to deposit them, the
maternal instinct of the animal in a state of freedom is evident. It is
generally among decaying vegetation where heat is generated, or in some
moist soft herbage where the sun's rays can penetrate. To regulate the
temperature in a close cage and keep the moss precisely in a condition
to suit snake requirements, was by no means easy, and our pythoness
seemed far from satisfied. The fact, however, was established beyond
doubt, that she was hatching her eggs by the warmth of her own body.
But a most untoward disaster happened one night in the overflowing of
the tank among her eggs, completely saturating them; and it was not
surprising therefore, that no young pythons appeared. The enormous
reptile remained coiled around and over her addled eggs for above seven
weeks, after which they were taken from her. She had, and with good
reason, been exceedingly irritable and even savage during this time of
trial, as it was mid-winter, the season when under other circumstances
she, like her companions, would have been half torpid. But her maternal
affection was undeniable, and this alone was worth witnessing; since
some authors would have had us believe that snakes (and particularly
non-venomous ones) manifest entire indifference regarding their eggs
and young. The python's eggs being, as usual, in one long string, the
keeper had no little trouble in getting them from under her.
Being aquatic in their habits, and on that account requiring much
water, anacondas are difficult to keep in captivity. The one lately
arrived among us was no sooner released from its travelling box than it
took to the tank with which its cage is furnished, and remained in it
for hours and even days together. But not there, poor thing, can its
swimming powers be displayed, since in close coils it completely fills
it. Notwithstanding these drawbacks of London life, the Gardens can
now boast of three of these valuable snakes; one of which has been a
resident since 1869; while those in Paris have not survived any length
of time.
One still more remarkable characteristic of the anaconda is that, like
the sea-snakes (_Hydrophidæ_), but unlike the python, it produces
its young alive. We have long been accustomed to think that only
vipers produce live young--and hence their name--and that all the
non-venomous snakes lay eggs. But snakes, so far as those in captivity
are concerned, are continually doing what is not expected of them.
Zoological Gardens afford valuable opportunities to students for
acquiring knowledge of the form, size, habits, &c. of animals, and an
occasional insight into their modes of life unattainable otherwise.
This is especially the case regarding the Ophidians; creatures which
in their native haunts are so retiring, inaccessible, and mostly
nocturnal, that less has been known of them than of almost any other
tribe of creatures. Regarding the subject in question, several very
important zoological facts have recently been established at the
Gardens, and we may add, to the surprise of the naturalist world
in England. In 1862 (the same year in which the pythoness laid her
hundred eggs), the then but slightly known non-venomous English snake
_Coronella lævis_ gave birth to a family of six live young ones in
a cage in London; and several other harmless snakes in the London
ophidarium have also afforded cause for surprise, not only in producing
live young, but in manifesting a very decided care for them. Some
New-world species have been examples of this; as, for instance, the
'garter-snake,' the 'chicken-snake,' and the 'yellow boa' of Jamaica
(_Chilobothrus inornatus_), the latter on several occasions, and
sometimes depositing eggs _at the same time_, but the eggs proving bad.
Mr Philip Henry Gosse, when in Jamaica nearly thirty years ago, gave
much careful attention to the habits of this 'yellow boa,' a snake
which sometimes attains eight or ten feet in length and is extremely
active. He records a great deal of highly interesting matter concerning
the _chilobothrus_; and, as a careful and conscientious observer, his
testimony is of much value. That this snake when at liberty lays eggs,
was well known, nests with eggs in them being often found. In one case
a 'yellow boa' was seen issuing from a narrow passage in a bank, which
when dug into was found to lead to a cavity lined with leaves and soft
trash, and containing eggs. This hole had been excavated, because the
dry crumbled earth was discharged at the entrance, where it lay in
a heap. The passage was only just large enough to admit the snake,
and the soft rubbish within must have been carried there. We cannot
positively assert that the snake constructed this skilful hiding-place
for herself, but if she did, she must have forced out the earth as
the burrowing snakes do, or by the muscular undulations of her body;
and she must have conveyed the leaves there in her mouth. Snakes do,
we know, sometimes make nests by coiling themselves round and round
to form a hollow. Under either circumstance maternal instinct is
undeniable; and if _chilobothrus_ merely discovered and appropriated
the nest of some other creature, her intelligence is still worth
recording.
We knew an instance where a snake in captivity exhibited restlessness
and uneasiness, crawling about the cage as if in search of something.
Those who had the care of it suspected she was with eggs, and placed
some sand in the cage. This appeared to satisfy her, and the eggs
were deposited. Mr Gosse had a Jamaica boa in the same condition. For
a long time it manifested discomfort and restlessness, being savage
and in every way objectionable, till at length it produced a family
of young ones. Knowing it was the habit of this snake to incubate its
eggs, Mr Gosse was greatly surprised at the event; and the startling
question occurred to him, that when circumstances are unfavourable for
the deposition of eggs, could a snake retain them until the young are
hatched?
Mr Gosse's surmises have been entirely confirmed both by similar
occurrences at the Zoological Gardens and by other writers, who in
the subsequent interval have also given careful attention to the
habits of Ophidians, and have produced valuable scientific works on
the subject. It is now an ascertained fact that not _chilobothrus_
only but several other oviparous species may at pleasure be rendered
viviparous by retarding the deposition of their eggs when circumstances
are unfavourable for them! In fact we find that we must almost
discard those old distinctions of _oviparous_, _viviparous_, and
_ovoviviparous_; which German authors tell us are not founded on any
other ground than a greater or less development of the fetus in the egg
at the time of laying; or on the nature of the exterior covering of the
egg; which is thicker and leathery in those which take some time in
hatching, and slighter and membranous in those which are hatched either
before or on deposition.
In serpents the eggs differ from those of birds by undergoing a sort of
incubation from the very first, so that whenever examined, the embryo
more or less advanced will be found. In the case of the pythoness of
1862, an egg was examined on the fifteenth day of incubation, and found
to contain a living embryo; a noteworthy fact, as the python incubates
for fifty-six days before hatching her eggs. Observations with the eggs
of _chilobothrus_ are attended by the same results--namely the fetus in
a certain stage of development is discovered whenever a gravid snake is
killed and examined. The young ones of the boa in the London collection
were perfectly developed and active, climbing all over their cage
as soon as they saw daylight. One family consisted of thirty-three;
another of eight; and another of fourteen. The activity and daring of
the snakelings were amazing, affording ample proof of their perfect
development. They were always on the defensive, shewing fight on the
slightest molestation. When the keeper put his hand into the nest among
them they seized upon it and held on so tightly with their teeth, that
on raising his hand they hung to it, wriggling and undulating like a
waving golden tassel. I ventured to take up one of these aggressive
little reptiles, but could scarcely hold it, from its energetic
wrigglings and contortions. It constricted my fingers tightly enough to
prove its singular instincts, and bit me savagely with its sharp little
teeth; but my glove being on, I permitted this, glad of so good an
opportunity for making personal observations.
It was said of the python that notwithstanding her care and vigilance
so long as she was incubating, when her snakelings were born she
took no notice of them. This may not always be the case. Vipers we
know are extremely watchful over their young; other snakes are often
seen accompanied by a young brood; and in the Jamaica boa maternal
affection is exhibited in no slight degree. A lady visiting the Gardens
compassionated one of these young families on the gravelly floor of
their cage, and brought a quantity of cotton wool, which was placed in
one corner. She was rewarded by seeing the luxury fully appreciated,
mother and little ones all huddling into it immediately.
That these non-venomous snakes thus produce their young under
_abnormal_ conditions is further confirmed by the varying size and
appearance of the offspring, and by their being more or less enveloped
in the shell-covering. Some are born quite coiled in the ruptured
shell, others with portions of it clinging about them, and others
again entirely free. Sometimes they are, as it were, imbedded in
the coriaceous covering. This was conspicuously the case with the
anaconda's progeny, but her young ones had every appearance of having
been a long while dead. The first of the six was freer from the shell
than the others, and about a foot and a half in length.