movement is very improper. But Nature sometimes is very improper, and I have frequently to blush for her. Now, this anal end is analogous to the lower end of the spinal column of our own species, which in our own larval state is used for educational purposes, but never for respiration; and, I am happy to say, is not ornamented with a pair of tubes sticking out as in the mosquito larva, because these tubes would interfere with the present style of our dress, and would even prove a serious obstacle to our sitting down.

The moment the mosquito emerges from its chrysalis in the water he does not touch water again. He spreads his wings and looks for a mate. He can as little comprehend the associations of his larval state as we can comprehend the illusions of our first love. The male mosquito henceforth has for its only object to kiss the mosquita, but the mosquita in her turn is very liberal in her kisses. She kisses promiscuously; but, although having a pair of wings, her kisses

are not those of an angel, and she, therefore, frequently comes to grief. The male mosquito only lives to kiss, but the female frequently dies for it.

There is a peculiar propensity, a kind of suicidal mania, in the whole class of dipterous insects. The housefly, for instance, repeats suicide so frequently that with her it becomes a habit. It is the prerogative of the fly to cultivate suicide as a vice. I once marked a fly by tying a knot in her left middle leg and found the same individual next morning drowning in my eye-opener, then in my coffee, then in my lunch cocktail, then in my appetizer. In my pousse café I saw two of her, and when I took my nightcap I did not pay any more attention to her.

The mosquito does not commit suicide by drowning, because he hates water and is ashamed of his larval existence, breathing through anal tubes and feeding on animalculæ not belonging to him, but to another class; as some specimens of our own spe

cies are ashamed of their juvenile depredations in garden and fields, belonging, who cares to whom, and of the educational action of the rattan on the lower end of their spinal column.

Now, if we compare the diet of mosquito larva and his mode of respiration to our own style of living this night, ought we not to be thankful?

THE science of medicine is the science which enables the student to pass his medical examination. The object of this science is to keep out of the dominion of the News Letter, and if this end has been obtained we call it the triumph of science.

Medicine branches off into two disciplines, which are called the old system and modern science. The followers of the latter call the followers of the first "old fogies"; the followers of the former call the adherers of modern science " young men." The oldest system was that of the Haruspices in ancient Rome. They examined the bowels of oxen with the naked eye and predicted out of them what would happen. Modern science examines the bowels of fools with the microscope and predicts

what has happened. Both disciplines agree on one point: they collect fees, or at least try to collect them. This is a very essential part of our science, and the discipline that treats about collecting fees is called physiology.

There are many other branches of medical science, but still there are not enough. We have forensic medicine, and our most gracious Sire has created a new science by proclaiming Dr. Leach doctor of surgical music. But we want a doctor of obstetrical æsthetics. There is a secret but intimate connection between these two apparently so different branches of human knowledge, and the connecting link is woman, or, as we scientists say, "female mankind." It is a fact already observed by the ancients that as soon as ladies approach a certain age they begin to develop in their meetings the most lively interest for medical matters and medical men. We medical men feel frequently the powerful influences exercised in their secret tribunals, called lunch parties, where