As an example of the rapidity with which a large tract may become peopled by the offspring of a single pair of quadrupeds, we may mention that in the year 1773, thirteen rein-deer were exported from Norway, only three of which reached Iceland.  These were turned loose into the mountains of Guldbringe Syssel, where they multiplied so greatly, in the course of forty years, that it was not uncommon to meet with herds consisting of from forty to one hundred in various districts.—­Lyell’s Geology, vol. ii.

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THE NOVELIST.

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THE CONFESSION OF SERVENTIUS.

(Concluded from page 46.)

That evening, Father Dominick, our excellent priest, and my tutor in the classics, was closeted for a length of time with my afflicted nominal parents; and two days afterwards taking me with him to his monastery, he introduced me to the superior, as an orphan, the child of dear and particular friends, confided by them to his charge for education upon their death-bed, and with a distinct understanding that I was not bound to take upon myself monastic vows, the superior allowed me to remain with him as a boarder.  Serventius and Artemisia I never more beheld, and every inquiry respecting them which I ventured to make of Father Dominick, was checked with a strange, sad look, and an admonition to mention them no more.  Seven long and peaceful years, I spent in the monastery; and at the expiration of that period, was placed by my guardian in the house of the celebrated Doctor Sanazio of Padua, as a student of medicine.  Here, novel and delightful studies, speculations, and scenes, opened upon my inquisitive, ardent mind, and amused my enthusiastic imagination.  Sanazio was regarded in learned Padua, as little less than a demi-god; at certain hours he visited his patients, amongst whom might generally be numbered three-fourths of the population of Padua; at certain hours, his own mansion was crowded like the audience-hall of some mighty potentate, with supplicants for food and physic; three evenings in the week were devoted by him to intense study in his own secret, solitary chamber; and upon the alternate three, he received the visits of those who desired to consult him upon abstruse points, only properly to be solved by an acquaintance with the occult sciences.  In brief, my honoured master, I soon discovered, was reckoned a very fair conjuror; he consulted the stars, drew horoscopes, cast nativities, was learned in the expositions of dreams and omens, undertook to give information respecting lost property, and matrimonial prospects; composed, and dispensed charms and philtres, and proved himself, as I have hinted, a capital astrologer, and something more.  How Sanazio, who certainly was a very extraordinary man, acquired his multifarious information, unless really by supernatural agency,