Quite in the dawn of this epoch lived the
useful bee: not, as now, the companion of man
whose haunts it rarely leaves for any distance,
for it has been found buried in the amber,
"locked up hermetically in its gem-like tomb—
an embalmed corpse in a crystal coffin." Along
with it came the moth and butterfly. And now,
save where here and there a stray shark has lost
its way, all the ravenous tyrants of our estuaries
and coasts have given place to the codfish and
herring, the salmon and haddock, and the other
immensely valuable fishes which tenant the
"barren ocean."

Towards the close of this epoch, a strange and
fearful change took place; the climate became so
cold that in many parts of our seas, dwelt shell-fish
which now live only on the shores of Iceland or
amid the fearful solitudes of Spitzbergen; the
land, previously much larger than now, seems to
have been broken up into islands and peninsulas;
and from Snowdon and the Yorkshire hills, to
Ronaldsay and Cape Wrath, winter reigned
over a realm of glaciers and icebergs, haunted
by the bear, the Siberian hare, and the reindeer;
while the narwhal sought the ice-floes that drifted
past the coasts of Sussex and Hampshire.
Perhaps at this time the beaver first visited England,
where, but for destroying man, it might have
remained to this day; the jaw of this sagacious
animal having been dug up, not fossilised, in
Lincolnshire; nay, it has even been said that the
beaver was killed in England so late as the time
of Oliver Cromwell. Be this as it may, it is
certain that a great part of England was below
water, and that a sea separated the remainder
from Wales. From this time it most probably
assumed its present form, and the "old coast-
line" having been fixed, the land, in the course
of ages, was again slowly elevated to a height of
twenty or thirty feet above the level of the sea,
where it must have remained for many a year:
as we know by the wall of Antoninus, from the
Fir(i)th of Forth to that of Clyde, being built to
meet the present, not the old, coast-line; and by
St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall being, even two
hundred years previously, connected as now with
the mainland.

After the land had been made a garden for his
use–and earth, sea, and river had begun to bear
food for him–came man, in his appointed time,
to dwell for a season in the cave and wigwam,
and seek a precarious existence with his rude
canoe and clumsy implements of chase, preying
on animals weaker than himself, and dying like
the beast of prey, till he succeeded to the dignity
of the cromlech and barrow. Had he lived in the
times of these ferocious creatures, his lot would
have been calamitous enough. Furnished even
with such terrible appliances as the Armstrong
gun and Enfield rifle, he would have had enough
to do to hold his own; but, when his means of
defence were the bow and sling, the snare and
pitfal, he could not for a moment have
entered the lists against animals from which the
lion and rhinoceros would have fled in dismay.
With one blow of its trunk, the mammoth would
have levelled to the earth the largest African
elephant; one stamp of his mighty foot, and the
contest was at an end. The Bengal tiger would
have encountered the old English tiger on the
same terms as the puma or jaguar would meet the
lion; the iguanodon need not have condescended
to contest matters with such puny antagonists.
How then could man have coped with them?
It was fitter that he should come as an equal
and companion, till in due time he became
master, and the heaven-born breath of reason
slowly ripened and fashioned him into the
powerful and highly-gifted creature he now is.

        PAYING THE DOCTOR.

ALL my bills are out at last, "with Dr.
Pildraught's compliments." The British, householder
has had my little account duly delivered,
and thinks to himself that my charge is rather
high. Nevertheless, he is now writing me a
cheque, I hope, to be enclosed in a friendly
letter, or delivered to me with a warm shake of
the hand.

In my mind, of course, English society is
divided into two great classes, registered medical
practitioners and patients. Of patients, there
are three orders: those who can and do pay;
those who can and don't pay; those who can't
pay. Of these classes, the second is large, and
the third is enormous. Of the cost of attendance
upon it, one-tenth part comes out of the
pocket of ratepayers, and nine-tenths are paid,
I believe, by self and brothers. After deduction
of this tax upon time and substance gladly paid,
and of inevitable business expenses, I am above
the mark in estimating eighty pounds a year as
the average profit of a "registered medical
practitioner." I should like the world to know how
many pure physicians live in good houses and
make a prosperous show, living upon their
private substance through a fair half of their
lives, before they receive more than ten fees in
a twelvemonth. It would be well if a few thousand
anxious general practitioners were suddenly
relieved of the necessity of looking prosperous
whatever be the pinch they suffer. The public
has an instinct that the doctor is incompetent
who is not in request, or–what is as bad–the
doctors suppose that the public has an instinct
of this sort. For my own part, I do not think
it has. I doubt much whether any medical man
is the better thought of for a brougham that he
cannot afford.

Nevertheless, while the faculty, as a whole,
is starved, the public that has money pays too
heavily for sickness when it comes. Sickness
comes also into a house much oftener than is
right and necessary. Paying the doctor is most
truly, for many people, a too heavy part of the
new year's financial settlement. Now I have a
fancy that the time is come when we might
begin an attempt to set the whole business
relation between doctor and patient upon a new
and pleasant footing, to the enrichment of the
medical profession, to the great diminishing of
sickness and sorrow, as well as to the relief of
Paterfamilias from all the horrors of a heavy