The wild people of the Solomon Islands, when they see a drop of blood flowing from an accidental scratch of hand or foot, say, "I must go home; some danger is at hand; the blood has come to tell me!" Sorcerers and witches of all times have endeavoured to procure a few drops of the blood of their intended victims in order to "work spells" upon the precious fluid, and so, according to the theory of "contagious magic," upon the person from which it came. In Italy to-day, as in this country a few hundred years ago, when some one's nose bleeds, a Latin hymn to the blood (beautiful in its conception) begging it to stay its flow, as it did when the soldier's spear pierced the side of the crucified Christ, is sung. In a village in the hills near Naples I was taken with an attack of nose-bleeding, and bathed my head with cold water from a pretty fountain which supplied the people with its pure stream. The women brought handsome old brass basins and embroidered cloths of the most delicate linen for my use. I heard a strange chanting behind my back as I stooped over the water, and when the bleeding had ceased I found that an old man of the village had placed two straws in the form of the cross on my shoulders, and was reciting the ancient Latin hymn to my overflowing blood! I obtained afterwards from a friend the words of the same hymn as used in long-ago days in English villages. One primitive race if not others, namely, the Australians, take a very prosaic and business-like view of the blood. They use it as an adhesive--a sort of liquid paste or gum, always ready to hand! In order to fasten feathers or other decoration to a pole, the Australian "black fellow," without wincing or hesitation, and as a matter of course, makes a cut (with a sharp piece of stone or glass) in his own arm, and uses the convenient blood. It also serves them as paint, as it has served many a chieftain of European race for signing his name, and many a prisoner for writing in the absence of ink.