precisely similar occurrences had already been officially recorded. The vision is, of course, nothing more than a product of the excited imagination of the mountaineers, who lend the favorite shape of a "Pickolitch" to the frequent, bizarre-looking masses of fog and mist which rise in their dark valleys, hover over gullies and abysses, and driven by a sudden current of wind, fly upward with amazing rapidity, and thus seem to disappear in an instant. The apprehension of the poor sentinel, on the other hand, was a kind of clairvoyance produced by the combined influence of local tradition, the nightly hour and the dark pass, upon a previously-excited mind, while the vision of the two officers was a similar magic phenomena, the result of the impressions made upon them by the instant prayer of the victim, and a hot discussion about the reality of the "Prikolitch." The sentinel probably saw a weird shape and fired; the gun burst and killed him outright, setting fire to his clothes, a supposition strengthened by the statement that the poor fellow, anticipating a meeting with the spectre, had put a double charge into his rifle. The accident teaches once more that a mere denial of facts and a haughty smile at the idea of visions profit us nothing, while a calm and careful examination of all the circumstances may throw much light upon their nature, and help, in the course of time, to extirpate fatal superstitions, like those of the "Prikolitch." It is interesting to see how harmless and even pleasant are, in comparison, the visions of men with well-trained minds and kindly dispositions. The bookseller Nicolai entertained his phantom-guests, and was much amused, at times, by their conversation. Macnish ("Sleep," p. 194) tells us the same of Dr. Bostock, who had frequent visions, and of an elderly lady whom Dr. Alderson treated for gout, and who received friendly visits from kinsmen and acquaintances with whom she conversed, but who disappeared instantly when she rang for her maid. Another patient of Dr. Alderson's, who saw himself in the same manner surrounded by numbers of persons, even felt the blows which a phantom-carter gave him with his whip. Although in all these cases the visions disappeared after energetic bleeding and purging, the phenomena were nevertheless real as far as they affected the patient, and have in every instance been fully authenticated and scientifically investigated. The well-known author, Macnish, himself was frequently a victim of this kind of self-delusion; he saw during an attack of fever fearful hellish shapes, forming and dissolving at pleasure, and during one night he beheld a whole theatre filled with people, among whom he recognized many friends and acquaintances, while on the stage he saw the famous Ducrow with his horses. As soon as he opened his eyes the scene disappeared, but the music continued, for the orchestra played a magnificent march from Aladdin, and did not cease its magic performance for five hours. The