naturalists, but none of them have lived long in the gardens of the Society. There is more hope for this specimen, however, as the strength of his constitution has been thoroughly tested. He was posted by an Irish lady residing at San Diego, Southern California, on May 28, by book-post, registered, as a present to her son-in-law, a gentleman residing near London. The package, the covering of which consisted merely of a thin pasteboard box, was delivered at Finchley on Monday evening, having occupied just four weeks in transit. During that time the little traveller could have had nothing to eat, and probably the change of temperature and the virtual exclusion of air tended to render him torpid. Anyhow he was alive, if not very active, and was not long in the residence of the chameleon, at a temperature of seventy degrees, before he began to manifest tokens of revivification. A letter from the lady who forwarded this strange present says that these "frogs" are habitual pets of the San Diego children, and are perfectly harmless, and capable of living for six months at a time without food.

30. TRAGEDY IN BERMONDSEY.-A man named William Edward Taylor, aged thirty-nine, a wholesale dealer in old iron in Webbstreet, Bermondsey, has been for some years living with a woman named Hebden, his wife having left him on account of the bad treatment she received from him, for which he had suffered imprisonment. At one o'clock this morning the noise of blows were heard proceeding from his house, followed by the screams of a boy; but a policeman who was appealed to declined to interfere, as the man was in his own house chastising his own son. In a few minutes the cries ceased, and Taylor ran out of the house with his throat cut in a frightful manner. The police then went into the house, and found the woman Hebden lying in bed insensible, and dreadfully injured, and her daughter by Taylor, a girl named Frances, aged five years, lying at the foot of the bed dead, her skull having been beaten in. Taylor's son James, aged thirteen, was lying in a corner of the room with his skull fractured, and severely injured about the head. The woman Hebden died in about twenty minutes. The weapon which the murderer had used was a bar of iron ten inches in length, and he had cut his own throat with a clasp-knife. In an up-stairs room the police discovered three boys, sons of Taylor, one of them a lad of sixteen. He said that, hearing the noise, he had locked himself and his two brothers up in the room. A dreadful scene occurred in the hospital, where Taylor was taken immediately by the police. Having been placed on a bed, his wounds were attended to, and he appeared to be very calm. But at about eight o'clock in the morning the patient suddenly jumped out of bed, ran out of the ward, entered the women's ward, and caught hold of the tongs. This ward is on the second floor, and one of the female nurses in it became so alarmed that she ran to the window and leaped out. She fell on the ground, but was not injured. The man then threw away the tongs, and, catching hold of the clockweights, tore them down, and threw them about the ward. He then

ran into one of the corridors, and the violence of his exertions caused the blood to flow from his wounds. He then put his finger in the blood, and wrote on the wall, "Poison me. Kill me. Let me

die. Put me out of my misery." He then ran to a window on the first floor, and jumped out of it into the grounds beneath. The window was only six feet from the ground. He was not injured by his leap, and having been secured by the hospital servants, he was carried back to the bed and strapped down. He has since been quite calm. There is not the slightest chance of his surviving.

THIS MONTH has been remarkable for a succession of thunderstorms unparalleled in this country for frequency and violence. They raged at different times in all parts of the country. During the week beginning on the 16th the storms were especially terrible. From hundreds of equally striking accounts we extract the following:

"Vessels arriving from the Channel ports report that the thunderstorm of Tuesday was one of the most terrific experienced for many years. From Walsall we learn that during the storm on Tuesday a mother and child were killed by lightning near that town. Another child in its mother's arms escaped unhurt. The husband and father, who was standing by, was also struck, but not seriously hurt. A telegram from Carlisle states that two men were struck by lightning at the Militia Camp, near Appleby, on Tuesday afternoon. Advices from Northampton are to the effect that the great storm on Tuesday resulted in great damage and also loss of life. Three men who got into a boat, which escaped from its moorings and capsized, were drowned. Heavy pieces of timber have floated down the river Nen, as also has bay in large quantities. In St. James's End the people are living in their bedrooms, and communication with the town and suburbs in the west has been kept up by means of carts and boats. One new house in the town has had its foundations washed away, and it has been propped up to prevent its falling. Two violent thunderstorms passed over Leamington and neighbourhood, which escaped the full fury of Tuesday's visitation. About eleven o'clock the lightning struck the shop of a trunk-maker in Bath-street, and did much damage. A very serious flood occurred at Northwich on Wednesday, doing much damage to property, the river Weaver overflowing its banks during the night, and Highstreet being flooded to the depth of four or five feet during the day. At 8 p.m. the water was still rising, and boats were being paddled about the street. Shortly after noon the river Dane overflowed its banks, and the fields and roads for a long distance were flooded. A sitting of the Northwich County Court was being held at the time in the drill-shed, and in a short time the building was surrounded with water to the depth of two feet, and in some places three feet. The floor of the room was flooded to a considerable extent before the business was adjourned. The occupants of the room had to take refuge on the forms. Some of the people got through the windows, and, walking along some iron hurdles and walls, they got away. The judge and registrar were fetched away in a trap, others waded

through the water, whilst several of the attorneys were carried out of the place and through Leftwich-road on the backs of boatmen and others. One or two rafts were also improvised, and people were conveyed along the road in carts and conveyances all day. It is stated from Macclesfield that a storm unprecedentedly furious raged from six till midnight on Wednesday. The canal burst its banks, and many hundred hands are out of employ. At Derby there were violent thunderstorms, both on Tuesday and Wednesday, and from the West of England there are accounts of the damage done by the first-mentioned day's visitation. During the thunderstorm on Tuesday Elizabeth Langlands, a young fisherwoman, belonging to Musselburgh, was struck dead by lightning while collecting bait."

The 24th was another day of disaster. From Wolverhampton to Stafford, it was reported at that date, quite a line of trees stripped of their branches and deprived of their bark is to be observed, while ash, elm, and poplar trees lie scattered about uprooted or shivered by the lightning. The escapes have, many of them, been little short of the miraculous. A portion of the roof of the vicarage of Penkridge was carried away, but the family were untouched. In close proximity was a cattle-market, where the monthly sales of stock had just been held. A number of farmers and drovers were still in the building when the lightning struck the place and shivered it into fragments, hurling the planks far and wide. A Mr. George Keeling, a resident farmer, was dashed to the ground and his face severely scorched. Several other persons were struck by the flame and were rendered insensible for a temporary period. The clerk to the Agricultural Society had an extraordinary escape. He was examining the receipts of the sale when the centre office, in which he was at work, was dislocated bodily from the rest of the sheds, carried several feet, and then splintered into atoms. He was for a moment stupefied, but, with the exception of his legs and face being slightly scorched, he was comparatively unhurt. A somewhat incredible incident occurred in an adjacent field. A heavy covered waggon was lifted into the air, literally carried over a garden bounded by hedges, and deposited in another garden. At Tettenhall, near Wolverhampton, the houses of an entire street were flooded several feet deep, and the furniture was in some cases swept out of the houses. At Ormskirk considerable damage was done. The storm was of about an hour's duration, and appeared to ride off in the direction of Wigan. At Aughton, an adjoining township, nearly the whole of the windows in a farmhouse occupied by Mr. Jackson were smashed, and the lightning forced its way into one of the bedrooms, in which a child was asleep. The footboard of the bed upon which the child lay was broken up into match-wood and strewn all over the room, but fortunately the child was not in ny way injured. Several other buildings have been struck in the ghbourhood, and a number of trees split. The storm flooded the rth Staffordshire Railway near Leigh and swept the ballast from r the rails. A passenger-train was thrown off the line, and the

engine ran down an embankment, taking the first carriage with it, the other carriages being saved by the breaking of a coupling-chain. The passengers in the first carriage were all much shaken and bruised, but none seriously hurt. A train from Stafford was delayed by a huge tree that had been riven with lightning and flung athwart the line. The driver of the same train narrowly escaped a dreadful death; a mass of electric fluid fell close to the engine, threw him upon the footway of the engine, and stupefied him for some moments; he was, however, further unhurt. The destruction of crops and houses is extensive, and desolation abounds.

JULY.

1. THE ALBERT MEMORIAL.-The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Louise, Princess Beatrice and Prince Leopold, visited the national memorial erected in Hyde Park to the memory of the late Prince Consort.

On Wednesday, the 3rd, the hoarding which formed the enclosure was removed, and the whole of the monument open to the public gaze, saving the central and principal figure of the Prince, which is the sole object that remains unexecuted. The official statement made respecting it is that a modification of Mr. Foley's model is to be cast in bronze, and the statue erected on the pedestal in the course of next year. The monument is elevated upon a lofty and widespreading pyramid of steps, from the upper platform of which rises a podium, or continuous pedestal, surrounded by sculptures in alto-relievo, representing counterfeit presentments of the most eminent artists of all ages of the world. The figures are about six feet high, and are arranged in historical groups in their several classes of painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music. On the level platform round which these groups cluster is erected the gorgeous canopy under which the statue is to rest. Four pillars of polished granite bear aloft the four main arches of the canopy. Each side is terminated by a gable, the tympanum of which contains a large picture in mosaic, its mouldings being richly decorated with carving, and inlaid with mosaic work, enamel, and polished gemlike stones, in accordance with the characteristics of a shrine. The intersecting roofs are covered with scales and metals richly enamelled and gilded, with crestings of gilt beaten metal in rich leaf-work. The structure is crowned by a lofty spire of "tabernacle-work," in partially gilt and enamelled metal, terminating in a graceful cross which reaches to the height of 180 feet above the ground. In addition to the sculpture in alto-relievo on the podium, there are,

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on pedestals projecting from each of its four angles, large groups illustrating the arts of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and engineering.

3. THE INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS.-This evening the Middle Temple Hall was thronged with an assembly out of the ordinary character of public meetings, the gathering being composed of ladies and gentlemen representing various nations, who have met to take part in the long-pending International Prison Congress, of which this was the opening meeting. Lord Carnarvon, in his opening address, said he need make little preface in stating what were the objects and history of this Conference. Its object was to obtain information, to compare the different prison systems of different countries, to discuss the principles and details upon which those systems were based, and to arrive, if possible, at some general conclusions. Its history was the history of a remarkable agreement by the peoples and Governments of many civilized countries on a subject which had been most justly considered of the highest importance. The difficulties in the way of such an agreement being come to were proverbial, for there were the prejudices and difficulties of race, language, institutions, character, and climate, but with all these difficulties facing them he did not despair of attaining on the part of those present some general agreement in respect to the subject upon which they had met. He was encouraged in this hope because nations widely different in general characteristics had thrown themselves heartily into this discussion. Almost every European State had given the Congress its support. France, embarrassed by a thousand difficulties, had given her assistance. Italy, true to the history of her own great jurists, took her part; Belgium had, among others, accredited one of her most distinguished statesmen to the Congress. Holland, with the sound sense which the English were delighted to believe was a common quality to both countries, was interested also in the Conference. Switzerland, Denmark, allinquiring and all-embracing Germany; and lastly, the United States a country which, by numberless experiments, had already contributed so much to the common knowledge, drawing with them to the other side of the Atlantic the South American States-were all represented, and had accepted England as the place of meeting. The Government had refused the Congress assistance and recognition, and, he understood, had even refused official information. He was bound to express his regret at this refusal, and still more at the grounds upon which that refusal was made. The noble chairman then passed in review the subjects to be considered in the Congress criminal law, criminal procedure, and preventive police, &c. The proceedings lasted for some days, and terminated with a grand dinner in the Middle Temple Hall, Sir John Pakington presiding.

4. A GREAT REVIEW and Field-day was held at Aldershott. It was a fine display, and one well worth a great many more spectators than the thousand or so who witnessed it. Her Majesty, Prince Leopold, Princess Beatrice, and their suite drove from Windsor in