It is a curious fact, though not generally known, that the popular
superstition of overturning the salt at table being unlucky, originated
in a picture of the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, in which Judas
Iscariot is represented as overturning the salt.

* * * * *


KANGAROOS.


"I have been much entertained during my wanderings through the country
adjoining this town, in observing the singular habits and extreme
sagacity of the kangaroos. I have noticed several who carried in their
fore paws a sort of umbrella, or fan, which they held so as to protect
their head and shoulders from the violence of the sun. One day I slipped
a brace of large greyhounds at a female who carried one of these useful
appendages, which she soon dropped and escaped: it was formed of a large
bough, over which some large leaves were spread, and fastened on simply
by the shoots of the bough sticking into the leaf."--_From a letter
dated Hobart's Town, February_, 1829.

* * * * *


THE EARL OF MANSFIELD.