In Gravel Lane, Southwark, was Finch's Grotto, a public garden and place of amusement, so named from William Finch, the proprietor. The Grotto was opened to the public in 1770 upon the plan of Vauxhall gardens. An orchestra and a band of musicians, added to the rural character of the place, and drew a numerous body of visitors. Very little is known about the Grotto, but it is supposed to have been closed early in the present century. THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS, OR, ORNITHORYNCHUS PARADOXUS. [Illustration [++] Duck-billed Platypus.] Of the genus _Ornithorynchus_ only one species--the _Paradoxus_--has yet been discovered in the whole world, and it is, therefore, one of the great curiosities of animal life. It appears to be a union of a quadruped and a bird, and is only to be found in New Holland, where it inhabits the reeds by the side of rivers. Our engraving represents it very accurately. It is about twenty inches long, having a flattened body, somewhat like the otter, and is clothed with a dark soft fur. The elongated nose very much resembles the beak of a duck, like which these animals feed upon water insects, shell-fish, and aquatic plants. The feet are five-toed and webbed, and in the fore-feet this membrane extends beyond the nails: the male is armed with a spur on each hind leg. This curious animal, in which a duck's beak is united to the body of a quadruped, rolls itself up like a hedgehog, when it sleeps in its burrows on the banks of the streams whence its food is derived. ORIGIN OF BOLTON ABBEY. About midway up the Vale of Bolton, amidst the gloomy recesses of the woods, the Wharfe, which is otherwise a wide and shallow river, is suddenly contracted by two huge rocks, which approach each other so nearly, that the country folk, or rather the villagers, call it the _Strid_, because adventurous people stride or leap from one rock to the other. In ancient days, the whole of this valley belonged to Baron Romillie, whose eldest son having died, left a younger brother, of the name of EGREMONT, sole heir of the domains and inheritance of this family. One day, however, when this young man, familiarly called the "Boy of Egremont," was returning from hunting with the hounds in the _leash_, he, as he had done many times before, was going to leap the _Strid_, when, just as he had attempted it, the hounds held back, and precipitated him headlong into the deep and awful chasm, which the impetuous fall of water (thus produced by the sudden contraction of the river) had worn in the base of the two rude rocks, and he was never seen afterwards. The Baron, being now left childless, built the Abbey, and endowed it with the domains of Bolton. LENGTH OF LIFE WITHOUT BODILY EXERCISE.