name, the God of all power and glory, is so legibly inscribed, that "he who runs may read." See how the stubble fields are covered with filmy flakes of gossamer, still wet with the dew of morning. At this season showers of gossamer often fall during the night, and sometimes cover a great extent of country. I have seen the fields and hedges for some miles thus lightly carpetted; and instances of extraordinary showers of this delicate cobweb, the production of a small spider, are on record.

One of them is mentioned by White, in a letter to the hon. Daines Barrington. It occurred in September, 1775. Before day-break had commenced, the fields were matted over, but at nine o'clock, the day being warm, bright, and cloudless, a shower of this substance began to fall, and contínued to fall without interruption to the close of day; the webs were not single, filmy threads floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes, some nearly an inch broad, and five or six long; and the degree of velocity with which they fell, showed that they were considerably heavier than the atmosphere. This shower was not limited only to the lower grounds, but extended to more elevated situations: on a common, three hundred feet higher than the fields around, the webs filled the air above, and descended in constant succession, twinkling in the sun as they fell; and they hung on the trees and hedges so thickly, that baskets might have been filled with them. To this account, the outlines of which are here only detailed, White adds:—" The remark I shall make on these cobweb-like appearances, called gossamer, is, that strange and superstitious as the notions about them were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that they are the real productions of small spiders which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from their bodies, so as to render themselves buoyant and lighter than air; but why these apterous (wingless) insects should take such a wonderful aërial excursion, and why their webs should at once become so gross and material as to be considerably more weighty than the air, and to descend with precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill."

It is, I think, to be explained in the following manner. Suppose a multitude of spiders to rise each on a filmy streamer, as they have been often seen to do, (see

| Weekly Visitor, 1835, page 349,) and havingattained a certain elevation, to continue to shoot out threads in still greater abundance, it would soon happen that the streamers of one would become entangled with those of others so as to form flakes, which a slight electric change in the state of the atmosphere might cause to become saturated with moisture, though no clouds were visible, so as to render them of greater specific gravity than the air, when they would of course fall, the spiders either quitting their parachutes, or descending with them; but even without being saturated with moisture, such flakes as I have seen, and as have been often described, formed either purposely, or by accidental entanglement, would not be buoyant enough to remain floating on a calm day, when no wind occurred to drive them, as feathers, through the air, which they exceed in weight.

Observe that swarm of black ants, all winged; thousands are flying around, and thousands cover the trees. and bushes: it is the swarming season with them, when the males and females assume wings, and migrate from their colony, the females to form fresh settlements and deposit their eggs; after which they probably perish, as do the males also, in the course of a short period. Perhaps you are ready to say, Surely ants are not winged insects; but if you examine those which are now found flying in clusters, you will find that they are so.

The

Ants, as is well known, live like bees, in societies, and every species is divided into males, females, and neuters; the latter, which are in reality imperfect females, never acquire wings, and compose the labouring population. males and perfect females are wingless only for a certain period, when, like other hymenopterous insects, they acquire four long membranous veined wings, and these being developed, they quit their habitation in swarms. The females now seek out fresh settlements, and having detached their wings, by means of their feet, they then lay their eggs, and thus found a new colony. Some, however, it is said, are retained in the parent colony by the neuters, who hold them prisoners, cut off their wings, and constrain them to deposit their eggs in their old habitation, after which, they are either suffered to depart or driven from the society.

The males may be known from the

females by their much inferior size; by the proportionate smallness of the head, and by the larger size of the eyes. The neuters are distinguished, not only by the absence of wings, but by the size of the head, the strength of the mandibles, the compressed form of the thorax, and the proportionate length of the feet; on these devolves the labour of constructing their habitations, and the rearing of the young.

The nature and form of their habitations, or the ants' nests, differ according to the instincts of the different species; generally they are made in the ground. Some species construct their domicile of grains of earth or sand, and form galleries, leading to an underground encampment: others make a raised city above the surface, using fragments of vegetable and other matters, which they collect for that purpose: and some live in old decayed trees, piercing them with labyrinthine galleries in all directions, which however lead to a central apartment, where the eggs are deposited and the young reared.

One of the labours of the neuters is the acquisition of provisions; and while thus engaged, they appear, as M. Latreille says, to gain information, by their touch and smell, of the success of their respective searches, and to encourage and assist each other. Fruits, insects and their larvæ, and the dead bodies of small animals, as mice or birds, serve them as food. They carry morsels of food in their mandibles to their young, (or larvæ ;) transport them, when the weather is fine, to the surface of their habitation, for the sake of warmth and air; re-descend with them as night comes on, or when rain approaches, defend them, and watch over them, and when the nest or habitation is torn up, exert every energy in the attempt to preserve them, and carry them out of danger. When the larvæ assume the nympha state, they still continue to attend them; during this period of transformation, the nymphæ of some species are naked, of others enclosed in a case, which, when the period of the last metamorphosis arrives, they strip off, and set the now perfect ant free from its encumbrance. Among the neuters of some of the species, individuals occur larger than ordinary, but of inconsiderable number; according to M. de Cordaire, these are the defenders of the society, and serve also as leaders or captains in the foraging expeditions of the troop.

It is well known that ants are very fond of a saccharine juice which oozes from the aphides, or plant-lice; and Huber states, that several species of ant make a practice of seizing upon these aphides, and conveying them to their nests, and that they often dispute among themselves the possession of the richly flavoured game." Some species even construct little galleries of earth, leading from their habitation along the stem of the tree, up to its branches, on which the aphides are clustered.

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The following singular trait in the history of two species of ant, called legionary, or amazon ants, (one the Fourmi roussâtre of Latreille, the other termed the sanguineous ant, Formica sanguinea,) is so curious, that had we not the authority of Huber and other observers for it, it might be well discredited. The colonies of most ants consist of an assemblage of the same species, but in the two species alluded to, this law seems to be strangely set aside, for the neuters of these ants procure by force auxiliaries or slaves, of the same caste as themselves, but of different species, (one the Formica cunicularia, the other the Formica fusca,) for the purpose of availing themselves of their co-operative labours. When the heat of day begins to decline, and regularly at the same hour, at least for several days, the legionary ants quit their citadel, and advance in a close column consisting of a greater or less number of warriors, according to the extent of the population, and direct their march upon the city they intend to despoil. They besiege it, and enter it, in spite of the opposition of its inhabitants, and seize with their mandibles the larvæ and nymphæ of the neuter caste, belonging to the conquered colony; these they carry off, in the same order, to their own habitation, and commit them to the care of neuter ants of the same species, which in like manner had been originally dragged into slavery from their homes, and who not only take care of the fresh arrivals during their larva state, but also labour in taking care of the offspring of the females of their victors. Such is the economy of these mixed societies of victors and vanquished, according to Huber, whose observations M. Latreille, the coadjutor of Cuvier, affirms that he has verified.

Towards the latter end of autumn, the males and females of the ants of our portion of Europe perish, but the neu

ters remain during the winter in a torpid state in their habitations, which they have previously secured and consolidated. Against this season they lay up no provisions, as has been imagined, for such would be useless.

How much is there in this slight outline of the history of the ant, to call forth reflection! How wonderfully is the faculty of instinct displayed in the operations and conduct of these insects, which cannot but astonish us: instinct impelling them to actions which in man would be the result of a process of reasoning, and leading us at once to the great source of all wisdom, the God of creation, who has implanted in every animal the innate impulse necessary to such labours and operations as are essential to its wellbeing, and which often surprise the philosopher. But the ant works blindly; not so man-accountable, rational man ; to whose reason God appeals in all his ways, claiming the homage, obedience, and gratitude of an immortal soul.

Pursue we our ramble. Observe the bee is still abroad, hovering around the flowers which now blossom; and the saffron butterfly (Papilio hyale) flits lightly by. Among our wild autumn flowers, that of the great bindweed (Convolvulus sepium) is one of the most elegant; its large white blossoms adorn the hedgerows, which are garlanded with its luxuriant festoons, the chaplets of Pomona. This graceful weed is not universally spread throughout our island. In the midland and more northern counties, it is either rare or not to be found.

It is interesting now to notice the habits and manners of the feathered race, and especially of our summer birds of passage. The swallows have now collected into vast hordes, and are rapidly traversing the regions of the air, as if trying their powers of wing preparatory to their final departure; doubtless they are also in the eager pursuit of their insect prey. The old birds, now that the toilsome duties of incubation and of rearing their broods are over, recruit their energies in the interval between their last incubation and the time of their flight from our shores; and the young birds have to train their strength, against the coming crisis. As the evening draws on, the thousands of these swallows now on the wing cluster around barns, churches, and tall trees, on which they settle during the night, huddled together in close array.

Extensive reed beds, however, constitute their favourite resting place during this month, perhaps from the shelter they afford against the chilly breezes of our autumnal nights. When the sun begins to decline, vast flocks may be seen wheeling and sweeping over the reeds, now settling, now rising again simultaneously, and again settling, while they keep up an incessant and noisy twittering, till, at length, they finally rest, and their vociferation gradually subsides.

It is from their partiality to reed beds, at this time of the year, that the old belief in the swallow's submersion beneath the water, in a state of torpidity, appears to have arisen. Many of the earlier naturalists were inclined to think that they thus passed the winter, buried in the oozy mud of fens and marshes, and that their migration was not actual, forgetting that birds of far less power of flight, as woodcocks and quails, were positively known to take long aerial journeys, as indeed it is well ascertained that the swallow does; its destination being Africa. It is proved from swallows kept in confinement in our climate through the winter, that they moult in February: a circumstance of great interest, inasmuch as it is not only a fact utterly at variance with their going into a torpid state, but as showing that they acquire renovated plumage, in their natural state in Africa, and so become prepared to take their flight back to Europe, in the month of January or February, when travelling by easy stages, they would reach our island and the northern portions of the continent, by the early part of April, regulating their progress according to the state of the weather.

The swallow arrives in Greece at the latter part of February, on its return to Europe. According to the Greek Calendar of Flora, by Theophrastus, of Athens, the ornithian wind blows, and the swallow comes between the 28th of February and the 12th of March; the nightingale between the 11th and 26th of March; and the cuckoo at the time the young figs appear on the trees; so that the most southern portions of Europe are occupied by their winged sojourners, long before the northern parts have received their influx.

We may now look in vain for the swift; it has already taken its migratory course southwards: it leaves us about the middle or latter part of August. Starlings now congregate in numerous flocks, and often

accompany rooks in their search over fallow or new ploughed lands for food. This circumstance was noticed by White, who expresses his wonder at it, and considers that the starlings attend upon their sable brethren for the sake of their own interest, availing themselves of the superior sense of smell which the rook enjoys, and which enables it to detect the spots where larvæ most abound; this is, perhaps, rather fanciful. It appears that the starling has a natural partiality, not only for the companionship of its own species, but for the society of other birds: flocks of starlings are often seen mingled with lapwings, which at this season leave the moors and boggy grounds for fallow lands and cultivated fields, where food is easily obtained. Like the swallow, the starling is partial to reed beds, as roosting places for the night; and it is interesting to watch a phalanx of these birds, wheeling, sinking, and rising over the reeds, and performing a multitude of aerial evolutions, all acting in unison, as if guided by some signal from a leader, till at length they settle to rest.

Wheatears now begin to congregate, and pass towards the south-eastern coast, covering the downs of Kent and Sussex, previously to their departure. The stone curlew, (adicnemus,) which scatters itself in pairs during the summer over high pasture grounds and extensive upland commons, now also collects into flocks, which make their way to the coast in readiness to migrate. The ringouzel, (Merula torquata,) by no means a common bird in our island, now leaves the mountain districts of England and Scotland, and associating in small companies, journeys to the south, preparatory to its flight to a warmer climate. They are now to be observed in Sussex, and occasionally in considerable numbers, frequenting the shrubs and bushes which are scattered over the downs, and which afford them shelter.

We are now approaching to the sea shore. Mark that fleet of small vessels in the distance: how animated the scene! how beautiful a picture they present, crowded on the placid surface of the water, blue as the sky above! They are out with men engaged in dredging for oysters, which are taken at this season from the beds they form, and sent in great quantities to the markets. These oyster beds are often artificial, or rather produced by oysters being purposely deposited in convenient situations, where

they breed, and keep up a due supply. It is common to call oysters "fish," but this term, though it may be tolerated in ordinary discourse, is very erroneously applied, and like all terms so used, liable to produce mistakes. Hence I have heard many assert the oyster to be a fish, as truly as the salmon or sole: the oyster, however, is a molluscous animal, belonging to the acephalous (or headless) testaceous section of Cuvier, or the conchiferous (shell-bearing) section of Lamarck.

To the same section belong the mussel, the cockle, the scallop, and thousands more. As is well known, these animals are housed in a firm, hard, calcareous shell, consisting of two parts, or valves, secreted by what is termed a mantle, and which in some species, undergoes, at certain seasons, a temporary development, so as to enable it to produce spines, ridges, or raised ornamental lines on the shell, a row of such being added at given intervals. If we separate the shells of an oyster, not in the usual way, but as if the animal naturally opened them, (which may be done when the animal within is just dead,) we perceive that each shell is lined with a delicate membrane, or first investment of the body of the oyster, having its margin free, except at the part of the shell occupied by the elastic hinge. These membranes form the mantle, and their edges are thickened. Between them are the branchiæ, or aquatic respiratory organs; consisting of two upper and two lower leaves, composed of fine radiatory fibres; these leaves are free, except at their base, where they are attached to the body of the animal, as the axis which they encompass. The body of the mollusk surrounds a thick muscular column, passing from shell to shell, by the action of which they are closed. The mouth, a simple orifice, with two pairs of lips, is seated between the two innermost leaves of the branchiæ, and appears to open at once, from the shortness of the gullets, into the digestive cavity, which is imbedded in the substance of the liver, and receives the secretion of this organ, through several tubular orifices. The liver is of large size, of a dark colour, and consists of an aggregation of small glands connected into a mass by a cellular tissue. The intestinal tube is short, and makes a double convolution, one loop encircling the stomach. The heart is situated between the muscular pillar,

and the other intestinal fold, and may be distinguished by its dark purple colour: it consists of two chambers, namely, an auricle and a ventricle: the former is a thin muscular sac, communicating, by means of two short canals, with the ventricle, which is more firm. The auricle receives the circulating fluid from the branchia, where it has undergone the necessary aëration, and then transmits it through the two canals into the ventricle, whence it is sent to circulate through every part of the animal system. In some bivalve mollusks the heart is more complex, and is divided into two auricles and a ventricle, or even into two auricles and two ventricles; a distinct heart being appropriated to each pair of branchiæ. The branchiæ are highly vascular, consisting of minute tubes having a parallel course, countless in number, and united by most delicate cellular tissue; and it is on its course, through these tubes, which alternately merge into larger vessels at the base of the branchiæ, that the circulating fluid becomes subjected to the oxygen of the water.

But the branchiæ have another and not less important office. Deprived, as the oyster is, (and other bivalve mollusks are also,) of the power of pursuing or seizing its prey-imprisoned as it were in its own shells-incapable of making any active bodily efforts, the question naturally suggests itself, How does the oyster live? The mouth, as already observed, is placed between the two innermost leaves of the branchiæ, and it is to these organs that it owes its reception of food. Now, on examining the branchie with a powerful microscope, it is found, that every filament of their fringe is covered with countless minute vibratory cilia, or threadlets, in constant action, incessantly vibrating, and so causing a strong current in the water washing their surface, and which is directed straightway to the mouth, carrying with it animalcules and different nutritious particles. The lips appear to be endowed with some singular power of discrimination, as they close against pernicious or unfit materials, receiving such only as are suitable for food. So energetic is the movement of the cilia over the surface of the branchiæ, that, it is said, if a portion of one of these branchia be cut off, it will continue to work itself along on the water by their rapid movements, till their vital energy departs.

The oyster has no locomotive powers;

it remains cemented to the rock, or to its fellows forming the bed, by a calcareous exudation on the outer surface of its shell; there it ever continues, fixed and unmovable, (as far as itself is concerned in locomotion,) and grows and lives the allotted term of existence. But other bivalves are not so chained down; they can propel themselves along the bottom of the sea, or burrow in the sand with considerable facility, as in the instance of the cockle, and the razor-shell, (solen.) These animals are provided with a foot, as it is commonly called, in shape resembling the tongue of an ox, and firm and muscular; it grows from the anterior part of the body, and is capable of being protruded, and brought into vigorous action. In the cockle, this organ is large, and enables the animal to move along by a succession of leaps, or sudden impulses; in the razor-shell, it is a burrowing organ, by means of which this mollusk can bore in the sand, to the depth of two or three feet or more, with singular rapidity; but in the sea mussel, the foot, which is small, is used only as a finger for fixing the gummy_threads of the beard, or byssus, as they are secreted, to any fixed substance; adding thread after thread, until the animal swings by a secure cable. The filaments composing the byssus are secreted at the base of the foot, in the form of glutinous filaments, which soon harden, and acquire considerable strength. In the pinna these threads are very fine, long, and numerous; and are sometimes spun and manufactured into gloves, and other articles, preserved as curiosities in the cabinets of naturalists, or in public museums.

Much respecting the economy of the bivalve mollusks remains to be cleared up. They live and fulfil their allotted task where the eye of the naturalist cannot pursue them; but to Him who formed them, their ways are all open; they are the work of His hands, who, in the beginning said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life;" and in their structure and habits they proclaim the power of their Creator. But if thus mysteriously glorious in the creation of the myriads of beings which tenant earth, and air, and water, what tongue can tell how glorious is the God of all grace in the revelation which he has given of himself to man, who, but for that bright light, would, in despite of reason, be left in darkness amidst the wonders of nature around him!

M.