Bee," those sweets would all be lost in the desert air, or decline with the fading blossom. The architecture of its cell is equally astonishing: the base of each cell is not an exact plane, but is composed of three similar rhomboidal pieces, placed so as to form a pyramidal concavity, uniting with the six sides of the cell. By this nice arrangement, the least possible room is lost, as well as a greater degree of strength obtained. "But Bees," says Reid, "although they act geometrically, understand neither the rules nor the principles of the arts which they practise so skilfully ;-the geometry is not in the Bee, but in the great Geometrician, who made the bee, and made all things in number, weight, and measure." The works of Bevan and Huber, and also Insect Architecture, will afford great amusement to those who are desirous of further information respecting this intelligent insect.

ON TAKING A FLY FROM A SPIDER'S WEB.

POOR little giddy, fluttering thing!
Keep still thy light transparent wing;
Thy fluttering drives thee further in
Th' entangling knot;

Alas! thou feel'st the bitter sting
By folly got.

Ah! see from out his silken shed
The spider darts with eager speed,
Whilst thou with fear art almost dead,
And still dost lie;

Ah! now he fastens 'neath thine head,
And must thou die?

There-take again thy liberty,

But still to pleasures thou wilt flee,
And soon again, I fear, 'twill be
Thy overthrow :

A grateful buzz thou givest me,
And warning too.

Thus youth rush on in pleasure's round,
And in its sunshine frisk and bound,
Nor heed the cobwebs hung around
With mischief fraught,

Nor till too late the truth is found
So often taught.

Time's Telescope, 1825.

FOREST TREES.

THERE stood the elme, whose shade so mildely dym
Doth nourish all that groweth under him :
Cipresse that like piramides runne topping,
And hurt the least of any by their dropping
The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth,
Each plant set neere to him long flourisheth:-
The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whose shade
The grasse grows thickest, men are fresher made :-
The oake, that best endures the thunder-shocks;
The everlasting ebene, cedar, boxe :—

The olive that in wainscot never cleaves:

:

The amorous vine which in the elme still weaves :-
The lotus, juniper, where wormes ne'er enter:
The pyne, with whom men through the ocean venter :-
The warlike yewgh, by which (more than the lance,)
The strong-arm'd English spirits conquer'd France :-
Amongst the rest, the tamariske there stood,

For housewives' besomes only knowne most good
The cold-place-loving birch, and servis-tree;
The walnut loving vales, and mulberry :—

The maple, ashe, that doe delight in fountaines

:

Which have their currents by the sides of mountaines :

The laurell, mirtle, ivy, date, which hold
Their leaves all Winter, be it ne'er so cold :-
The firre, that oftentimes doth rosin drop:

The beech, that scales the welkin with his top:
All these and thousand more within this grove,
By all the industry of nature strove

To frame an arbour that might keepe within it,
The best of beauties that the world hath in it.

WILLIAM BROWNE, 1616.

THE THISTLE.

PLEDGE to the much-loved land that gave us birth,
Invincible, romantic, Scotia's shore!

Pledge to the memory of departed worth,

And first, amidst the brave, remember Moore !

Triumphant be our Thistle still unfurl'd!

Dear symbol wild! on Freedom's hills it grows;
Where Fingal stemm'd the tyrants of the world,
And Roman eagles found unconquer'd foes!

Is there a son of generous England here?
Or fervid Erin?—He with us shall join
To pray, that, in eternal union dear,

The Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle twine.

Types of a race who shall the invader scorn,
'As rocks resist the billows' round our shore;
Types of a race who shall to time unborn,

Their country leave unconquer'd as of yore!
CAMPBELL.

The above stanzas, alluding to our National floral emblems, are taken from Campbell's Patriotic Ode, composed for the 21st of March, 1809, the anniversary of the Highland Society, the day on which the gallant 42nd regiment carried into Egypt the standard of the Invincibles.-It is a curious fact that Botanists are undetermined as to the particular species of Thistle, which is the genuine emblem of Scotland. Prof. Hooker states, that the Common Cotton Thistle, Onopordum Acanthium, is cultivated by the Scotch as their true badge, but Prof. Rennie gives the preference to the Spear-plume Thistle, Cnicus lanceolatus, as being the most common by their way-sides, while the other is less frequent. The usual heraldic figure, however, seems to be most like the Musk Thistle, Carduus nutans, a plant frequent on limestone soils. The motto used by the Knights of the Thistle, or of St. Andrew, is peculiarly appropriate to their floral badge, Nemo me impunel acessit; "no one touches me with impunity," or in plain Scotch, "Ye maun't meddle wi' me."

Proud Thistle! emblem dear to Scotland's sons,
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault!

LO, THE LILIES OF THE FIELD!

Lo, the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson given

By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy :-
Mortal, flee from doubt and sorrow:
GOD provideth for the morrow!

Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily ;—

Mortal, flee from doubt and sorrow :
GOD provideth for the morrow!

ONE there lives whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny:
ONE there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow :

GOD provideth for the morrow!

BP. HEBER.

THE ST. JOHN'S-WORT.

THE young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of power ;—
"Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light!
I must gather the mystic St. John's-wort to-night,

The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide,
If the coming year shall make me a bride."
And the glow-worm came,
With its silvery flame,

And sparkled and shone

Through the night of St. John,

As soon as the young maid her true knot tied.
With noiseless tread

To her chamber she sped,

Where the spectral moon her white beams shed :—
"Bloom here-bloom here, thou plant of power!
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!”
But it droop'd its head, that plant of power,
And died the mute death of the voiceless flower;
And a withered wreath on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than a bridal day.

And when a year was pass'd away
All pale on her bier the young maid lay!
And the glow-worm came,
With its silvery flame,

And sparkled and shone,

Through the night of St. John,

And they clos'd the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay.

Blackwood's Magazine.

The ancient name of the St. John's-wort, Hypericum, was Fuga Dæmonum, being believed by the superstitious to defend persons from phantoms and ghosts. It was used among the curious ceremonies practised of old on Midsummer Eve, the vigil of St. John's day. In Lower Saxony the young girls gather sprigs of this plant on the eve of St. John, and suspend them on the walls of their chambers; if the plant remain on the following morning fresh, it foretells a prosperous marriage ;-if it droop and wither, the reverse, a state of single blessedness. This superstition gave origin to the above romantic lines.

Respecting the magical properties of the Fern-seed, Dr. Leyden thus alludes:

But on St. John's mysterious night,

Sacred to many a wizard spell,
The time when first to human sight
Confest the mystic Fern-seed fell;
Beside the Sloe's black knotted thorn,
What hour the Baptist stern was born.