But his most novel speculation asserts that man requires poetry and health to contrast with his physical and moral destitution; he lives better in the open air than in badly ventilated houses; he lives longer in the country than in towns; terrestrial magnetism acts more directly and more profitably on the peasant than on the citizen, because the latter walks on stone pavement, which is an isolator, whereas the peasant walks with bare feet on the humus (the earth), his mother and his nurse. He forgets, perhaps, that the modern Parisian walks almost as much on asphalte as on stone pavements. - The Anemone Pulsatilla, and, indeed, all other species, are extremely acrid in all their parts. It causes, when applied externally, or introduced into the stomach, all the effects of acrid and corrosive substances, as violent inflammation, and a stupefying action on the nervous system. - A correspondent describes the park at Hampton Court humorously thus: "The 'park' at Hampton Court was first laid out, like the garden, in the Dutch style, and there are still long avenues with double-planted rows of trees on each side, radiating off from the front of the palace like a pair of tongs with more legs than a pair, with level green sward between them.

A few scores of highland 'sturks,' alias Scotch bullocks, and some hundreds of fallow deer, graze here at ease and comfort, and shade and shelter themselves in the avenues." He says strawberries are forced there in such abundance, that they are gathered by the bushel for routes and public breakfasts. - All forcing, it will be found, is up-hill work before the days have begun to lengthen. - It is not at all uncommon, in old places, to find magnificent trees so situated, that, instead of being objects of beauty and interest, they are just the reverse - objects of regret. We once saw a splendid Cedar of Lebanon, the trunk of which measured upwards of four feet in diameter, growing so close to the front door of the edifice as to lash the windows with its branches. This, though exceedingly annoying, no doubt still remains a mark of censure upon the hand that planted it. Had this tree been judiciously placed some thirty yards from the building, instead of being offensively troublesome, it would have been highly interesting, and the admiration of every one. - Attention is largely attracted to a new disinfecting powder, invented by a Mr. McDougall, the composition of which is. yet a secret.

Farm-yard manure, in the worst stage of noisomeness, was turned over in presence of a great many observers, and the odor disappeared almost instantaneously on the application of a slight sprinkling of the powder. - It is not generally known that the cajeput oil of India is obtained from trees very similar to the common Melaleucas, and that even from the leaves of the Eucalypti an oil can be obtained of equal utility. The Sandarac gum, exuding from the Callitris, or pine-tree of Victoria, is now collected in the greatest abundance. An Australian manna is being introduced into commerce, but is of inferior quality to the Ornus manna. - All the gutta percha-trees of Singapore have been destroyed, to procure the gum of commerce, and explorers are in search of new localities; there is said to be five sorts of the gum, produced by different trees. - The death of the late Professor Edward Forbes, of Edinburgh, is considered, by his fellow-laborers in science, as a national calamity. By the time he was seven years of age, he had formed a small, though tolerably well-arranged museum of his own, and, from that early age, he was indefatigable in the pursuit of natural history. - It is a most dangerous experiment to write about things without a practical acquaintance with them.

When Oliver Goldsmith, genius as he was, tried his hand at a History of Animated Nature - and a very delightful book he made of it - he knew so little of the chief subject of his chapters (that of quadrupeds), that he described the cow as casting her horns annually. There is no information which passes more speedily and thoroughly away from the memory than that of natural history, if it be learned from books only. - Genial Dr. Darlington, who, to extraordinary botanical acquirements, adds the bonhommie of an agreeable man, in his Flora Cestrica, or Botany of Chester County, Penn., allows the student the benefit of his extensive reading, and enlivens the details of the science by an occasional quaint remark or quotation. We cannot do better than to close our " Gossip" to-day with the following, taken from that reliable and able book. The doctor has described the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) all in botanical correctness, when he breaks out with the following observation: " The fine purple clusters of fruit, on the fertile plant, render it quite an ornamental little tree; and, when planted in the yards and public squares of our cities, it affords an almost literal exemplification of the much admired Rhus in urbe!" Of the Naked-Stem Aralia, he says: "The root is sometimes used as a substitute for the sarsaparilla of the shops.

I believe both the original and the substitute to be rather innocent medicines - provided the disease be not serious!" The author is evidently an admirer of shakspeare; we wish, by the way, some one would collect all the observations of the poet on trees and flowers. The doctor has made a good beginning, and were it not that he is a banker himself, the observations he has appended to Romeo's remark would have less force. He is speaking of the common plantain and the "obs." is thus put: "A naturalised foreigner-remarkable for accompanying civilized man; growing along his footpaths, and flourishing around his settlements. The leaves are a convenient and popular dressing for blisters and other sores - a fact which seems to have been known in the time of Shakspeare, as we learn from his Romeo and Juliet, Act. 1, Scene 2: 'Romeo. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. Ben. For what, I pray thee? Romeo. For your broken shin.'" "The plantain leaf," now goes on the doctor, "continued in vogue, for that purpose, from the Elizabethan age down to our own times, when a substitute was furnished by the officious empirics who undertook to reform and regulate our national currency!" Who would expect a dissertation on shin plasters in a severely scientific book? And who is there that is not pleased with the transition from the grave to the gay?