The almonds should be dried for a few days after being blanched. Set them in a warm place, strewn singly over a dish or tin. A little powdered lump sugar will assist the pounding. They may be first chopped small, and rolled with a rolling pin.—Almond Paste may be made in the same manner.

Put the almonds into cold water, and heat them slowly to scalding; then take them out and peel them quickly, throwing them into cold water as they are done. Dry them in a cloth before serving.

The use of ice in cooling depends upon the fact of its requiring a vast quantity of heat to convert it from a solid into a liquid state, or in other words, to melt it; and the heat so required is obtained from those objects with which it may be in contact. A pound of ice requires nearly as much heat to melt it as would be sufficient to make a pound of cold water boiling hot; hence its cooling power is extremely great. But ice does not begin to melt until the temperature is above the freezing point, and therefore it cannot be employed in freezing liquids, &c., but only in cooling them. If, however, any substance is mixed with ice which is capable of causing it to melt more rapidly, and at a lower temperature, a still more intense cooling effect is the result; such a substance is common salt, and the degree of cold produced by the mixture of one part of salt with two parts of snow or pounded ice is greater than thirty degrees below freezing.

In making ice-creams and dessert ices, the following articles are required:—Pewter ice-pots with tightly-fitting lids, furnished with handles; wooden ice-pails, to hold the rough ice and salt—the pails should be stoutly made, about the same depth as the ice pots, and nine or ten inches more in diameter, with a hole in the side, fitted with a good cork, in order that the water from the melted ice may be drawn off as required. In addition, a broad spatula, about four inches long, rounded at the end, and furnished with a long wooden handle, is necessary to scrape the frozen cream from the sides of the ice-pot, and for mixing the whole smoothly together. When making ices, place the mixture of cream and fruit to be frozen in the ice-pot, cover it with the lid, and put the pot in the ice-pail, which proceed to fill up with coarsely-pounded ice and salt, in the proportion of about one part of salt to three of ice; let the whole remain a few minutes (if covered by a blanket so much the better), then whirl the pot briskly by the handle for a few minutes, take off the lid, and with the spatula scrape the iced cream from the sides, mixing the whole smoothly; put on the lid, and whirl again, repeating all the operations every few minutes until the whole of the cream is well frozen.

Great care and considerable labour are required in stirring, so that the whole cream may be smoothly frozen, and not in hard lumps. When finished, if it is required to be kept any time, the melted ice and salt should be allowed to escape, by removing the cork, and the pail filled up with fresh materials. It is scarcely necessary to add, that if any of the melted ice and salt is allowed to mix with the cream, the latter is spoiled. From the difficulty of obtaining ice in places distant from large towns, and in hot countries, and from the impracticability of keeping it any length of time, or, in fact, of keeping small quantities more than a few hours its use is much limited, and many have been the attempts to obtain an efficient substitute. For this purpose various salts have been employed, which, when dissolved in water, or in acids, absorb a sufficient amount of heat to freeze substances with which they may be placed in contact. We shall not attempt, in this article, to describe all the various freezing mixtures that have been devised, but speak only of those which have been found practically useful.

Many of the freezing mixtures which are to be found described in books are incorrectly so named, for although they themselves are below the freezing point, yet they are not sufficiently powerful to freeze any quantity of water, or other substances, when placed in a vessel within them. In order to be efficient as a freezing mixture, as distinguished from a cooling one, the materials used ought to be capable of producing by themselves an amount of cold more than thirty degrees below the freezing point of water, and this the ordinary mixtures will not do. Much more efficient and really freezing mixtures may be made by using acids to dissolve the salts. The cheapest, and perhaps the best, of these for ordinary use, is one which is frequently employed in France, both for making dessert ices, and cooling wines, &c. It consists of coarsely powdered Glauber salt (sulphate of sodium), on which is poured about two-thirds its weight of spirit of salts (hydrochloric acid).

The mixture should be made in a wooden vessel, as that is preferable to one made of metal, which conducts the external heat to the materials with great rapidity; and when the substance to be cooled is placed in the mixture, the whole should be covered with a blanket, a piece of old woollen carpet doubled or some other non-conducting material, to prevent the access of the external warmth; the vessel used for icing wines should not be too large, that there may be no waste of the freezing mixture. This combination produces a degree of cold thirty degrees below freezing; and if the materials are bought of any of the wholesale druggists or dry salters, it is exceedingly economical. It is open, however, to the very great objection, that the spirit of salt is an exceedingly corrosive liquid, and of a pungent, disagreeable odour: this almost precludes its use for any purpose except that of icing wines.

Actual quantities—one pound of chloride of ammonium, or sal ammoniac, finely powdered, is to be

mixed with two pounds of nitrate of potassium or saltpetre, also in powder; this mixture we may call No. 1. No. 2 is formed by crushing three pounds of the best Scotch soda. In use, an equal bulk of both No. 1 and No. 2 is to be taken, stirred together, placed in the ice-pail, surrounding the ice-pot, and rather less cold water poured on than will dissolve the whole; if one quart of No. 1, and the same bulk of No. 2 are taken, it will require about one quart of water to dissolve them, and the temperature will fall, if the materials used are cool, to nearly thirty degrees below freezing. Those who fail, may trace their want of success to one or other of the following points:—the use of too small a quantity of the preparation,—the employment of a few ounces; whereas, in freezing ices, the ice-pot must be entirely surrounded with the freezing material: no one would attempt to freeze with four ounces of ice and salt. Again, too large a quantity of water may be used to dissolve the preparation, when all the excess of water has to be cooled down instead of the substance it is wished to freeze. All the materials used should be pure, and as cool as can be obtained. The ice-pail in which the mixture is made must be of some non-conducting material, as wood—which will prevent the access of warmth from the air; and the ice-pot, in which the liquor to be frozen is placed, should be of pewter, and surrounded nearly to its top by the freezing mixture. Bear in mind that the making of ice-cream, under any circumstances, is an operation requiring considerable dexterity and practice.

Take one pint of strawberries, one pint of cream, nearly half a pound of powdered white sugar, the juice of a lemon; mash the fruit through a sieve, and take out the seeds: mix with the other articles, and freeze. A little new milk added makes the whole freeze more quickly.

The same as strawberry. These ices are often coloured by cochineal, but the addition is not advantageous to the flavour. Strawberry or raspberry jam may be used instead of the fresh fruit, or equal quantities of jam and fruit employed. Of course the quantity of sugar must be proportionately diminished.

One large pottle of scarlet strawberries, the juice of a lemon, a pound of sugar, or one pint of strong syrup, half a pint of water. Mix,—first rubbing the fruit through a sieve,—and freeze.

Raspberry Water Ice is made in precisely the same manner as Strawberry-water ice.

Lemon juice and water, each half a pint; strong syrup, one pint: the rind of the lemons should be rasped off, before squeezing, with lump sugar, which is to be added to the juice; mix the whole; strain after standing an hour, and freeze. Beat up with a little sugar the whites of two or three eggs, and as the ice is beginning to set, work this in with the spatula, which will be found to much improve the consistence and taste.

Orange-Water Ice is made in the same way as Lemon-water ice.

Another substance, which is free from any corrosive action or unpleasant odour, is nitrate of ammonium, which, if simply dissolved in rather less than its own weight of water, reduces the temperature about twenty-five degrees below freezing. The objections to its use are that its frigorific power is not sufficiently great to freeze readily; and if it be required to form dessert ices, it is requisite to renew the process, at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, a second time, and, if the weather is very hot, and the water used is rather warm, even a third or fourth time. Again, nitrate of ammonium is a very expensive salt; even in France, where it is manufactured expressly for this purpose, it is sold at the rate of three francs a pound; and in England it cannot be obtained under a much higher price. One great recommendation, however, attends its use, namely, that it may be recovered again, and used any number of times, by simply boiling away the water in which it is dissolved, by a gentle fire, until a small portion, on being removed, crystallizes on cooling.

If, however, nitrate of ammonium in coarse powder is put into the cooler, and there is then added twice its weight of freshly crushed washing soda, and an equal quantity of the coldest water that can be obtained, an intensely powerful frigorific mixture is the result, the cold often falling to forty degrees below freezing. This is by far the most efficacious freezing mixture that can be made without the use of ice or acids. But, unfortunately, it has an almost insuperable objection, that the nitrate of ammonium is decomposed by the soda, and cannot be recovered by evaporation; this raises the expense to so great a height, that the plan is practically useless.

If the ordinary sal ammoniac of the shops is used, it will be found both difficult to powder, and expensive; in fact, it is so exceedingly tough, that the only way in which it can be easily divided, except in a drug mill, is by putting as large a quantity of the salt into water which is actually boiling as the latter will dissolve; as the solution cools, the salt crystalizes out in the solid form, and if stirred as it cools, it separates in a state of fine division. As this process is troublesome, and as the sal ammoniac is expensive, it is better to use the crude muriate of ammonium, which is the same substance as sal ammoniac, but before it has been purified by sublimation. This is not usually kept by druggists, but may be readily obtained of any of the artificial manure merchants, at a very moderate rate; and its purity may be readily tested by placing a portion of it on a red-hot iron, when it should fly off in a vapour, leaving scarcely any residue.

It is hardly necessary to add, that in icing wines, or freezing, the effect is great in proportion to the coldness of the materials used; therefore, every article employed, viz., the water, tubs, mixtures, &c., should be as cool as possible.

The cock bird is of a deep black, with a yellow bill. The female is dark brown. It is difficult to distinguish male from female birds when young; but the darkest generally are males. Their food consists of

The natural food of the blackbird is berries, worms, insects, shelled snails, cherries, and other similar fruit; and its artificial food, lean fresh meat, cut very small, and mixed with bread, or

A cock may be distinguished from a hen by a darker back, and the more glossy appearance of the feathers. The belly also is white. Their natural food is insects, worms, and snails. In a domesticated state they will eat raw meat, but snails and worms should be procured for them. Young birds are hatched about the middle of April, and should be kept very warm. They should be fed with raw meat, cut small, or bread mixed in milk with hemp seed well bruised; when they can feed themselves give them lean meat cut small, and mixed with bread or

To distinguish a cock bird from a hen, observe the bird when it is singing, and if it be a cock you will perceive the throat heaving with a pulse-like motion, a peculiarity which is scarcely perceptible in the hen. Feed young canaries with white and yolk of hard egg, mixed together with a little bread steeped in water. This should be pressed and placed in one vessel, while in another should be put some boiled rape seed, washed in fresh water. Change the food every day. When they are a month old, put them into separate cages. Cut the claws of cage-birds occasionally, when they become too long, but in doing so be careful not to draw blood.

Care must be taken to keep canaries very clean. For this purpose, the cage should be strewed every morning with clean sand, or rather, fine gravel, for small pebbles are

to life and health in cage-birds: fresh water must be given every day, both for drinking and bathing; the latter being in a shallow vessel; and, during the moulting season, a small bit of iron should be put into the water for drinking. The food of a canary should consist principally of

rape seed that is, of those small

rape seeds which are obtained from plants sown in the spring, and which ripen during the summer; large and

rape seeds, on the contrary, are produced by such plants as are sown in autumn and reaped in spring. A little chickweed in spring, lettuce leaves in summer, and endive in autumn, with slices of sweet apple in winter, may be safely given; but bread and sugar ought to be generally avoided. Occasionally, also, a few poppy or canary seeds, and a small quantity of bruised hemp seed may be added, but the last very sparingly.

Cleanliness, simple food, and fresh but not

air, are essential to the well-being of a canary. During the winter, the cage should never be hung in a room without a fire, but even then, when the air is mild, and the sun shines bright, the little prisoner will be refreshed by having the window open. The cage should never be less than eight inches in diameter, and a foot high, with perches at different heights.

Old birds should be fed with German Paste, (

.

Cock birds are browner on the back than the hens, and have some of the large feathers of the wings white up to the quills. Canary and hemp seed, with occasionally a little groundsel, water-cress, chickweed, &c., constitute their food.

The cock is recognised by the largeness of his eye, the length of his claws, the mode of erecting his crest, and by marks of white in the tail. It is also a larger bird than the hen. The cage should be of the following proportions:—Length, one foot five inches; width, nine inches; height, one foot three inches. There should be a circular projection in front to admit of a fresh turf being placed every two or three days, and the bottom of the cage should be plentifully and constantly sprinkled with river sand. All vessels containing food should be placed outside, and the top of the cage should be arched and padded, so that the bird may not injure itself by jumping about.

Their food, in a natural state, consists of seeds, insects, and also buds, green herbage, as clover, endive, lettuce, &c., and occasionally berries. When confined, they are usually fed with a paste made in the following manner:—Take a portion of bread, well-baked and stale, put it into fresh water, and leave it until quite soaked through, then squeeze out the water and pour boiled milk over it, adding two-thirds of the same quantity of barley meal well sifted, or, what is better, wheat meal. This should be made fresh every two days. Occasionally the yolk of a hard-boiled egg should be crumbled small and given to the birds, as well as a little hemp seed, meal, worms, and elder berries when they can be got. The cages of these birds should be kept very clean.

Parrots may best be taught to talk by covering the cage at night, or rather in the evening, and then repeating to them slowly and distinctly, the words they are desired to learn. They should not be kept in places where they are liable to hear disagreeable noises, such as street cries, and the whistling and shouts of boys at play, for they will imitate them, and become too noisy to be tolerated. Parrots may be fed upon soaked bread, biscuit, mashed potatoes, and rape seed. They are fond of nuts. They should be kept very clean, and allowed a bath frequently. When parrots appear sickly in any way, it is best to keep them warm, change their food for a time, and give them lukewarm water to bathe in.

Good German paste for cage birds may be made in the following manner:—Boil four eggs until quite hard, then throw them into cold water; remove the whites and grate or pound the yolks until quite | fine, and add a pound of white pea-meal and a tablespoonful of olive oil. Mix the whole up together, and press the dough through a tin cullender so as to form it into small grains like shot. Fry these over a gentle fire, gradually stirring them until of a light brown colour, when they are fit for use.

To keep away insects suspend a little bag of sulphur in the cage. This is said to be healthful for birds generally, as well as useful in keeping away insects by which they become infested.

In a domestic state these little animals are fed with hazel nuts, or indeed any kind of nuts; and occasionally bread and milk. They should be kept very clean.

Rabbits should be kept dry and warm. Their best food is celery, parsley, and carrots; but they will eat almost any kind of vegetable, especially the dandelion, milk-thistle, &c. In spring it is recommended to give them tares. A little bran, and any kind of grain occasionally is beneficial, as too much green food is very hurtful. Care should be taken not to over-feed them. When fed upon dry food a little skim milk is good for them. Tea leaves also, in small quantities, may be given to them.

White Mice are fed upon bread soaked in milk, peas, oats, beans, &c., and any kind of nuts.

Monkeys feed upon bread, and fruit of any kind. Do not give them meat, but occasionally they may I have small bones to pick.

Guinea Pigs very much resemble rabbits in their mode of living, and may be treated in much the same manner. They should be kept dry, warm, and very clean.

Poultry should be fattened in coops, and kept very clean. They should be furnished with gravel, but with no water, except that with which their only food, barley-meal, is mixed. Their thirst makes them eat more than they would, in order to extract the moisture from the food. This should not be put in troughs, but laid upon a board, which should be washed clean every time fresh food is put upon it.

Mix together ground rice well scalded with milk, and add some coarse sugar. Feed them with this in the daytime, but do not give them too much at once; let it be rather thick.

It is a bad thing to give fowls egg-shells. They supply nothing that is not equally well furnished by lime, and especially bricklayers' rubbish, old ceilings, &c. Never do anything that has a tendency to make them eat eggs. They are apt scholars. If they find worms in a natural way they are good food, but it is a bad plan to give them by the handful.

Great care must be taken of gold fish, as they are very sensitive; and hence a loud noise, strong smell, violent or even slight shaking of the vessel, will sometimes destroy them. Small worms, which are common to the water, suffice for their food in general, but the Chinese, who bring gold fish to great perfection, throw small balls of paste into the water, of which they are very fond. They give them also lean pork, dried in the sun, and reduced to a very fine and delicate powder. Fresh river-water should be given them frequently, if possible. Gold-fish seldom deposit spawn when kept in glass-vessels. In order to procure a supply, they must be put into reservoirs of a considerable depth, in some part at least, well shaded at intervals with water-lilies, and constantly supplied with fresh water.

The best way to keep dogs healthy is to let them have plenty of exercise, and not to over-feed them. Let them at all times have a plentiful supply of clean water, and encourage them to take to swimming, as it assists their cleanliness. Naldire's soap is recommended as highly efficacious in ridding dogs of fleas. After using any soap rinse it well off with clean water. Properly treated, dogs should be fed only once a day. Meat boiled for dogs, and the liquor in which it is boiled thickened with barley meal, or oatmeal, forms capital food.

The distemper is liable to attack dogs from four months to four years old. It prevails most in spring and autumn. The disease is known by dulness of the eye, husky cough, shivering, loss of appetite and spirits, and fits. When fits occur, the dog will most likely die, unless a veterinary surgeon be called in. During the distemper, dogs should be allowed to run on the grass; their diet should be spare; and a little sulphur be placed in their water. Chemists who dispense cattle medicines can generally advise with sufficient safety upon the diseases of dugs, and it is best for unskilful persons to abstain from physicing them. In many diseases dogs will be benefited by warm baths.

Hydrophobia is the most dreadful of all diseases. The first symptoms are attended by thirst, fever, and languor. The dog starts convulsively in his sleep, and when awake, though restless, is languid. When a dog is suspected, he should he firmly chained in a place where neither children nor dogs nor cats can get near him. Any one going to attend him should wear thick leather gloves, and proceed with great caution. When a dog snaps savagely at an imaginary object, it is almost a certain indication of madness; and when it exhibits a terror of fluids, it is confirmed hydrophobia. Some dogs exhibit a great dislike of musical sounds, and when this is the case they are too frequently made sport of. But it is a dangerous sport, as dogs have sometimes been driven mad by it.

The mange is a contagious disease, which it is difficult to get rid of when once contracted. The best way is to apply to a veterinary chemist for an ointment, and to keep applying it for some time after the disease has disappeared, or it will break out again.

It is generally supposed that cats are more attached to places than to individuals, but this is an error. They obstinately cling to certain places, because it is there they expect to see the persons to whom they are attached. A cat will return to an empty house, and remain in it many weeks. But when at last she finds that the family does not return, she strays away, and if she chance then to find the family, she will abide with them. The same rules of feeding which apply to dogs apply also to cats. They should not be over-fed, nor too frequently. Cats are liable to the same diseases as dogs; though they do not become ill so frequently. A little brimstone in their milk occasionally is a good preventive. The veterinary chemist will also prescribe for the serious diseases of cats.