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gay,

The sun at noon seen through the leafless trees,

The clear calm ether at the close of day."

November, however, is a month of fogs and mists; and "driving sleets deform the day:" the leaves which, seared and withered, still remained on the branches of the forest, are now stripped off by the rude wind, and covering deep the tender shoots and the various plants that love the woodland glade, form a natural matting to protect them from the severities of the season; and then decaying as spring comes on, become resolved into a light mould for their nutriment a wise and beautiful arrangement.

But the vegetable world is neither dead, nor are the tuneful mute, as poets feign. The trees have indeed lost, or are quickly losing their foliage; but new buds, embryo leaves folded up, and protected by a close envelope, have been pushed forth, waiting for the breath of spring to develope them; the stalks and leaves of some plants have perished, but the roots remain housed in the bosom of the earth, as if dormant, till warmer suns restore their vital energies. Others indeed, like the frail insects of the summer, the ephemera and the butterfly, have passed away; but not until they had scattered their seeds abroad, which are waiting to fill, in Flora's kingdom, as it is called, the place which their parent plants had occupied : and thus, in the vegetable world, provision made for the safety and non-extinction of species. Shall we then say, that death reigns, at this season, over the meads and woodlands? It is only a needful repose, the quiescence of hybernation. But are the tuneful mute? The swallow, it is true, no longer twitters "on the straw-built shed;" the thicket no longer resounds with the melody of the nightingale, and the strains of the thrush and the blackbird have ceased. But listen the song of the robin is clear and lively; the short, shrill pipe of the wren occasionally breaks upon the ear; the sparrows on the eaves are chirping; and if no full chorus of music

delights us, as we pass through leafless groves, and along hedgerows, ruddy with the clustering berries of the hawthorn, we, at least, hear the piping call notes of troops of birds, expressive of contentment, mingled with the caw of the rook, whose black squadrons are scattered over the fields; and the chattering of the restless magpie.

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At this season, many birds, which during the summer were only associated in pairs, now collect into flocks of considerable numbers, and thus rove the country in quest of food. Of this singular law, the skylark is an instance. These well-known songsters, to whose varied and delightful minstrelsy no one can listen without pleasure, now gregate in immense troops, spreading over ploughed lands and turnip fields, searching for grain seeds, and tender leaves. All are not natives of our island, for the numbers are increased by accessions from the northern parts of the continent, driven from their own countries by the inclemency of the season. ing greatly esteemed as delicacies for the table, hundreds are now devoted to slaughter: the gun thins their ranks, but the net still more so; and whole flocks, while sleeping, unsuspicious of danger, are captured during the darkness of the night. From the neighbourhood of Dunstable, (and also from Holland,) the London markets are supplied. Great, however, as is the destruction of these birds at this season, there is no perceptible diminution of them during the spring and summer; we may then walk through the corn fields and clover lands, and hear and see them in abundance.

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Another beautiful bird, which now collects into flocks, is the yellow hammer, (Emberiza citrinella,) which may be observed flitting along the hedgerows, and crowding the farmer's stack yard, attracted by the scattered corn. chaffinch (Fringilla cælebs) is another example; but it is remarkable that the males of this species form flocks distinct from those of the females; the latter being very few in number, most having migrated, while the males are stationary with us.

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This curious fact is noticed in few works of ornithology; Mr. Selby, however, distinctly mentions it: the British ornithologists," he says, scribe this species (the chaffinch) as permanently resident with us, and nowhere subject to that separation of the sexes, and the consequent equatorial movement of

the females, which is known to take place in Sweden and other northern countries, The fact, however, is otherwise, as the experience of a series of years has evinced that these birds, in a general point of view, obey the same natural law in the north of England. In Northumberland and Scotland, this separation takes place about the month of November, and from that period to the return of spring, few females are to be seen, and those few always in distinct societies: the males remain, and are met with during the winter in immense flocks, feeding, with other granivorous birds, in the stubble lands, as long as the weather continues mild, and the ground free from snow; and resorting, upon the approach of storms, to farm yards and other places of refuge and supply."

There is reason to believe that this separation of the sexes, and migratory movement of the females, takes place in other species. Selby asserts, that it does in the case of the snow bunting, (Emberiza nivalis,) which visits us from the north in winter; and he asserts that the first flights of woodcocks which arrive, (and which stay only a few days to recruit their strength, and then pass southwards,) consist almost exclusively of females, while the later flights of woodcocks, (which remain with us during the winter,) are as exclusively composed of males. This curious point in ornithology requires farther elucidation : an attention to it on the part of field naturalists, and of persons who have opportunities of making the requisite observations, may lead to very interesting conclusions.

It may be asked, Why do birds which live only in pairs during the summer, congregate at this season of the year? A satisfactory answer is not easy, and still less so would be an answer to the question, Why, in some species, do the sexes form distinct flocks, of which those composed of males live with us through the winter, while those consisting of females migrate southwards? With regard to the first question, it occupied the attention of the ingenious author of the "Natural History of Selbourne,' but he comes to no conclusion. "As these animals," he observes, "are actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of sustenance, at a time when it is most likely to fail; yet such associations do take

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place in hard weather chiefly, and thicken as the severity increases. As some kind of self-interest and self-defence is, no doubt, the motive for the proceeding, may it not arise from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons, as men crowd together under great calamities, though they know not why? Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold, and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey, and other dangers.' It requires little reflection to perceive the futility of such conjectures; here, and indeed in numberless instances besides, the ultimate end to be fulfilled, by the operations of animals ever guided by an instinct implanted within them, eludes our scrutiny.

Among the rarer birds which now visit our coast, may be noticed the great northern diver, (Colymbus glacialis.) This beautiful species, so destructive among fishes, is a native of the polar regions, and also of Norway, Sweden, and Russia; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that the individuals which are to be found in the bays of Scotland, and the northern portions of our island, are all, or nearly all, the young of the year, in that state of plumage in which it was considered by the older naturalists to be a distinct species, and to which they gave the scientifie title of Colymbus immer. Adult birds, characterized by the plumage of the upper parts being tessellated with square white spots on a black ground, are very seldom to be seen. The Frith of Forth is a favourite resort of these young divers, in consequence of the shoals of herrings which congregate there, and which furnish a sumptuous repast to these and other oceanic birds, which are appointed to thin their numbers. The propensity of the young to wander to a greater distance, than do the adults, from their native shores, which is remarkable in the instance of the northern diver, is common to many other oceanic species. It might be supposed that with an exhaustless supply of food around them, and clothed as they are with deep, warm, waterproof plumage, that none of our indigenous oceanic birds would migrate to more southern regions: many of them, however, do so, visiting more congenial seas during the winter, and returning in spring to their old haunts for the purpose of breeding and rearing their young. Such is the case with the

rejoice with those that do rejoice, and weep with those that weep." Like the tree before us, it may be said of the believer, that the sharper the blast that assails him, the more does his thanksgiving abound; the deeper his trial, the louder he sings; and thus, though sorrowful in himself, he is always rejoicing. The foliage of this tree, being composed of innumerable and sharpedged leaves, when agitated by the wind, gives forth a mournful, murmuring sound, varying from loud to soft, from sweet to shrill, as influenced by the gentle gale, or the gusty blast; sometimes, it is as the dash of the billows of ocean on the strand, and again as melancholy melody. Hence Virgil speaks of "the singing pines;" nor have modern poets been neglectful of the circumstance.

"The loud wind through the forest wakes

With sound like oceans, roaring, wild and deep,
And in yon gloomy pines strange music makes,
Like symphonies unearthly heard in sleep;
The sobbing waters dash their waves and weep;
Where moans the blast its dreary path along,
The bending firs a mournful cadence keep,
And mountain rocks re-echo to the song,

are annually consumed to supply the demand. Dr. Clarke enters into a full description of the process, which is much the same as that adopted by the Highlanders for their local purposes. He tells us, that the roots, logs, etc., being neatly tied in bundles or stocks of a conical shape, are placed in a hole of the same size and shape, which is dug on the side of a bank or hill. Having carefully covered the top with turf, firmly beaten down, they set fire to the stack, which is slowly consumed. A cast iron trough having been previously fixed at the bottom of the funnel, with a spout projecting through the bank, conveys the tar exuded from the wood, into barrels placed ready to receive it. Lampblack is produced from the soot, which is deposited on the top or sides of the cavity during the process of combustion: this is generally the produce of the American forests. To obtain turpentine, much used in painting, an incision is made in the trunk, and the liquid exuding from it, is collected in ladles, and poured into a basket or

As fitful raves the wind the hills and woods sieve. The turpentine runs through in

among."-DRUMMOND.

"And then there fled by me a rush of air,
That stirr'd up all the other foliage there,
Filling the solitude with panting tongues;
At which the pines woke up into their songs,
Shaking their choral locks."-L. HUNT.

In Rowe's translation of Lucan, the
peals of loud applause, with which the
ready legions rent the air, are thus
compared:-

"Such is the sound when Thracian Boreas spreads
His weighty wing o'er Ossa's piny heads :
At once the noisy groves are all inclin❜d,
And, bending, roar beneath the sweeping wind:
At once their rattling branches all they rear,
And drive the leafy clamour through the air.

A later poet says,

"An idle voice the Sabbath region fills,

Of deep that calls to deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs and pine trees steady sugh."
WORDSWORTH.

The rosinous secretions of this tree not only increase the durability and consequent value of the timber, but are in themselves of great use to man, when yielding tar, pitch, lampblack, turpentine, and rosin. The two latter are extracted from the trunk by incision; tar is produced by burning the roots, chips, etc., and is afterwards converted into pitch by boiling. Large forests of the pinus sylvestris in the north of Europe,

to earthern vessels ready to receive it. The sediment in the basket is then distilled with a quantity of water; the oil thus procured is oil of turpentine, and the matter which yet remains, rosin.

Tar water is well known on account of the medicinal properties attributed to it, which were so highly celebrated by bishop Berkely, but this remedy is now much neglected. Even the fumes of melted rosin are said to have been found beneficial in asthmatic complaints. Indeed, the air when impregnated with the exhalations of fir trees, is considered not only to be refreshing and agreeable, but wholesome for those whose lungs are delicate. The ancients were accustomed to mix some of the rosinous products of this tree with their wines, as rendering them more pleasant and less injurious. The fresh cones are sometimes boiled in whey as a remedy for scurvy, and Evelyn strongly recommends the chips as substitutes for hops.

Dr. Clarke tells us that the fir tree is the summum bonum of the Norwegian peasants; nor is it less useful to the Highlanders, furnishing them, as it does, with wood for their buildings and furniture, food for their cattle, and fuel for their fires. In bad seasons, the inner bark when kiln-dried and ground,

"Oh! wild and bleak are Scotland's hills,
Where headlong torrents roar,
Where granite-peaked mountains frown,
All capped with snow wreaths hoar:
And broad and wide her moorlands stretch
With many a dark ravine,

is often added to eke out the oaten | in its native haunts, towering in rugged meal of which their cakes are made. In- majesty amid the sublimest scenes of the deed, it is considered that the deficiency Scottish Highlands. in the home supply of this timber, is to be attributed to the numbers of young trees cut down for this purpose in 1812. The young shoots, as well as the bark, are said to be used for the same purpose in Siberia. In this latter country, ropes are also made from the bark, and found to be strong and elastic. The inflammable properties of the wood, cause it to be valued above any other by charcoal burners.

Slips of the wood lighted, were and still are, in some parts both in Europe and America, used as substitutes for candles. Hence a story is related of a Highland chieftain, who won a large bet in the following manner :-Being present at a party in England, when some massy chased silver candlesticks were much admired, he ventured to assert they were inferior to those he daily used in the Highlands. A large sum was immediately staked that he could not prove his assertion. After some time, which was allowed him to bring the candlesticks to London, the company assembled to decide the bet, when several handsome young Highlanders, clothed in their national costume, were seen standing round the table, each holding a blazing fir torch in his hand. It was universally owned that these were the candlesticks commonly used in Scotland, and that their value was superior to the finest silver candelabras.

The too prevalent idea that the Scotch pine is a gloomy, unpicturesque looking tree, has, no doubt, arisen from its being generally planted for the sake of its timber, or else to serve as a sheltering screen to more tender plantations, or the habitations of man. We then find this tree, as Gilpin observes, in "close, compact bodies, in thick array, which suffocates and cramps them; their lateral branches are gone, and their stems are drawn into poles, on which their heads appear stuck as on a centre."

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Where legends tell of kelpie sprites,
By fitful moonshine seen.

When winter winds shriek loud and high,
When floods tumultuous pour,
The lofty pine creaks gratingly
Amid the mighty roar.

The lofty pine crowns Scotland's hills,
Nor recks he winter's blast,
His root clings firmly to the rock,
Like an anchor strong and fast."

66

L. A. TWAMLEY.

Within the vast districts yet covered with the remains of those magnificent forests which once extended over the whole face of the country, are to be found scenes of unrivalled sublimity and interest, yet deriving their greatest attractions from the noble tree of which we are speaking. The "good green woods" of England are unequalled for sylvan beauty; but those of the Highlands combine within their limits all that is wild and grand in landscape scenery. Here, the endless fir woods run up all the ramifications and subdivisions of the tributary valleys, cover the lower elevations, climb the sides of the lower hills, and even in many cases, approach the very roots of the giant mountains which tower over them; yet with all this, the reader is mistaken, if he supposes that any tiresome uniformity exists among these wilds. Every movement we make, exposes to our view fresh objects of excitement, and discloses new scenes produced by the infinite variety of the surface. At one time, we find ourselves wandering along some natural level, under the deep and sublime shade of the heavy pine foliage, upheld high over head by the tall and massive columnar stems which appear to form an endless colonnade; the ground dry as a floor beneath our footsteps, the very sound of which is muffled by the thick deposition of decayed spines, with which the seasons of more than one century have strewn it; hardly conscious that the sun is up, save from the fragrant rosinous odour which its influence is exhaling, and the continued hum of the clouds of insects that are dancing in its beams over the tops of the trees. Anon, the ground begins to swell into hillocks, and here and there the continuity of shade

curiosity to be seen from ten in the morning till six in the evening."

In a very short time, I directed my steps to the Cosmorama, in Regent Street, where the enormous head was to be seen. There I gazed on the prodigy, and much did it excite my wonder. The proprietors were Frenchmen, and many were the dreams of imagination in which they indulged. It was thought the head might have belonged to a bird, for the beaklike formation of the projecting bones gave some colour to such a possibility; but, then, had such a monster lived, kitelike, on other birds, he would speedily have depopulated a space equal to a whole parish, ay, a whole county of its feathered tribes. It was suggested by one, that it might have belonged to a fish; but the circumstance of it being found so deep in the earth, and so far from the sea, threw a difficulty in the way of this suggestion. It was intimated by another, as no improbability, that it belonged to a reptile, a gigantic lizard; and to such a creature, supposing that he sustained himself by vegetation, shrubs and bushes must have been as grass, and young oaks and elms as a pleasant sort of asparagus. In short, from the conversation I had with these foreigners, it was clear that in their apprehension, the eagle might be but a Îark, the whale but a minnow, and the mammoth but a mite, compared to the creatures that once inhabited the air, the ocean, and the earth in the ages that have longed winged their way to eternity.

Well! I lost sight altogether of this "Enormous Head" for some years, and did not expect to see the like again, until one day visiting this place I saw the two heads now before me, one that of the Spermaceti whale, (Physeter macrocephalus,) the other the skull and lower jaw of the northern whalebone whale, (Balana mysticetus.) The strong resemblance of the latter convinced me that the "Enormous Head" was nothing more than the head of a whale.

I have entered my name in the book, kept in the hall, for the purpose of receiving signatures of visitors: given a glance at the gilded idol, and the mysterious impression made by his foot, ascended the staircase, paused a moment opposite the musk ox, polar bear, and gigantic fernsprays, and am now op

posite the elephant and giraffes, sometimes regarding them, and sometimes leaning my head backwards to admire the painted ceiling, whereon the fall of Phaeton, and the synod of heathen gods, are beautifully painted.

Youth, maturity, and age, all press forward to see the British Museum. There is a perfect throng now upon the staircase. Holiday and cheerfulness may be seen in almost every face. A pleasant sight it is to witness human happiness!

are

Here is a room crowded with curiosities, once the property of savage tribes, living thousands of miles apart from each other! The Esquimaux, the new Zealander, the Otaheitan, and the South American Indian have all contributed to the collection. Implements of labour, fishing tackle, warlike weapons, and instruments of music ranged around. The spear, the javelin, the shark-tooth saw, the club, the tomahawk, and the scalping knife, are mingled with bows and arrows, canoes, sledges, fish hooks, harpoons, bowls, and calabashes. Here is a screen made of the feathers of an eagle; there, a dancing dress of the fibres of cocoa nut bark, and yonder are ugly idols, bracelets of boars' tusks, mirrors of black slaty stone, necklaces of seeds and shells, and wooden coats of armour.

Nor are the trophies of war forgotten; the scalps of the vanquished in battle may here be seen, a species of spoil that is too dear to the cruel and implacable spirit of savage men. How opposed to the fierce hostility and relentless revenge of the untutored Indian, is the merciful injunction, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them whieh despitefully use you, and persecute you," Matt. v. 44. And yet the time will come, for the mouth of the Holy One has declared it, when this Christian command shall run through the wigwam and through the world, when the javelin of the savage shall be broken, his bow be snapped in sunder, and his scalping knife be guiltless of his fellow's blood.

In the centre of the room, in a glass case, lies the far famed Magna Charta, wrung from a tyrannous monarch by the armed hands of his barons; and many a prying eye pores over the time-worn document with curiosity and wonder. It takes us back to the days when king

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