“You mistook the question, my boy,” said the master; “you imagined, no doubt, that I asked who was the wisest _woman_ in the world; and to that question your answer is very accurate; for, as Eve was the _first_ woman in the world, she must at that time have also been the _wisest_.” But the mortified pupil was too much disturbed by the laughter of his schoolfellows to avail himself of this ingenious hint. He appealed to the ready-made answers of his catechism, to prove that his master alone was the cause of his distress. “Look there; question fourth, ‘Who was the first woman in the world?’ answer, ‘Eve;’ but instead of that, when I expected question fourth, you asked question fifth, that you did!” A SLY COUPLE.--A gentleman in the county of Stirling kept a greyhound and a pointer, and being fond of coursing, the pointer was accustomed to find the hares, and the greyhound to catch them. When the season was over it was found that the dogs were in the habit of going out together and killing hares for their own amusement. To prevent this a large iron ring was fastened to the pointer’s neck by a leather collar and hung down so as to prevent the dog from running, or jumping over dykes, &c. The animals, however, continued to stroll out to the fields together, and one day the gentleman suspecting that all was not right, resolved to watch them, and to his surprise found that the moment they thought they were unobserved, the greyhound took up the iron ring in his mouth, and carrying it they set off to the hills and began to search for hares as usual. They were followed and it was observed, that whenever the pointer scented the hare, the ring was dropped and the greyhound stood ready to pounce upon poor puss the moment the other drove her from her form, but that he uniformly returned to assist his companion after he had caught the prey. * * * * * THE PHILOSOPHER PUZZLED.--De la Croix relates the following instance of sagacity in a cat, which, even under the receiver of an air pump, discovered the means of escaping a death that appeared to all present inevitable. “I once saw,” says he, “a lecturer upon experimental philosophy place a cat under the glass receiver of an air pump, for the purpose of demonstrating that very certain fact, that life cannot be supported without air and respiration. The lecturer had already made several strokes with the piston, in order to exhaust the receiver of its air, when the animal, that had begun to feel herself very uncomfortable in the rarefied atmosphere, was fortunate enough to discover the source from whence her uneasiness proceeded. She placed her paw upon the hole through which the air escaped, and thus prevented any more from passing out of the receiver.