The _Crocodile_ is feigned to weep and groan like a human being in pain and distress, in order to excite the sympathy of man, and thus allure him into his tremendous jaws. The _Lizard_, though now declared by naturalists to be perfectly harmless, was long considered poisonous by the ignorant; and in Sweden and Kamschatka, the green lizard is the subject of strange superstitions, and regarded with horror. Newts, efts, swifts, snakes, and blind-worms are, in popular credence, all venomous; and that the _Ear-wig_ most justly derives its name from entering people's ears, and either causing deafness, or, by penetrating to the brain, death itself, is with many considered an indisputable fact. The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are believed; they term it the _Coffin-cutter_, and it has some connexion with the grave and purgatory, not now, unfortunately, to be recalled to our memory. It is, in Germany, a popular belief, that the _Stag-beetle_ (perhaps the same insect) carries burning coals into houses by means of its jaws, and that it has thus occasioned many dreadful fires. (How convenient would _Swing_ find such a superstition in England!) The _Death-watch_ superstition is too well known to need particular notice in this paper. It is singular that the _House-cricket_ should by some persons be considered an unlucky, by others a lucky, inmate of the mansion: those who hold the latter opinion consider its destruction the means of bringing misfortune on their habitations. "In Dumfries-shire," says Sir William Jardine, "it is a common superstition that if crickets forsake a house which they have long inhabited, some evil will befal the family; generally the death of some member is portended. In like manner the presence or return of this cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the family." (_To be continued_.) * * * * * NOTES OF A READER. DOMESTIC LIFE IN AMERICA. _Servants_. The following sketch of what the Americans feel on this point, from Mrs. Trollope's _Domestic Manners of the Americans_, is clever and amusing:--