They are not of the sparrow kind, (Passerine,) but of the bunting kind, (Emberiza.) Gold-fish, (p. 285.)-Peter states that this fish was introduced into England in 1661. Pennant and others, however, say it was in the year 1691.'

Grasshopper, (p. 315.)—" It feeds on grass, and utters a chirping note, which is supposed to be caused by the fluttering of its wings." The chirping is produced by the insect rubbing the serrated part of its legs against the elytra or wing-cases, as we well know from having often witnessed the performance. De Geer and others assure us that grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets are furnished with a remarkable formation resembling a drum, which greatly contributes in increasing the sound. This apparatus consists of a concavity, across which is distended a membrane; connected with this is an oval aperture, which has been compared to the hole in military drums, violins, and guitars. Mr. Rennie found that when this aperture was closed by a piece of wafer, the insect could no longer produce its usual sound, but merely a muffled scraping.

Dragon-fly, (p. 318.)-Peter says there are "three or four different kinds of dragonflies," and "they bite fiercely when they are taken." A reference to Stephens's Systematic Catalogue of British Insects, or some such work, would have shown the author that there are many more spécies of this insect than three. The structure of their mandibles seems to disqualify them for biting human flesh, though they are well adapted for the seizure of their insect prey.

Spiders, (p. 322.)-It is here stated that all spiders are "furnished with eight eyes." Most species have that number, but all have not, for Argyroneta aquatica, Segestria perfida, and Drysdera erythrina have only

six eyes.

Silkworm, (p. 314.)-This is spoken of as being literally a sort of worm, which it is not; but the larva or caterpillar of a species of moth, scientifically termed the Bombyx mori.

3. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF WORCESTER.- BY DR. C. HASTINGS.

The present work, which is a sort of prospectus of the natural productions of Worcester, is published under the direction of that county's Natural History Society, which was established in 1733, and judging from the number of its members, about two hundred, and other circumstances, is likely to succeed in all its objects. We cannot refrain from expressing our pleasure, at seeing in the list of the Society's members, the names of nearly forty ladies, one of whom in particular, Mrs. Perrott, appears from this work, and from her excellent articles in the Analyst, to be an active and zealous observer of nature.

Man's peculiar Endowments, (p. 50.)— Dr. Hastings speaking of the endowments of man, says," He alone is blessed with the power, (apparently denied to the lower animals,) of communicating his thoughts, wishes, wants, and feelings; he alone can look back on, reflect upon, and contemplate the past; he alone can look forward to, and calculate the destinies of the future." In

this passage, there is, indubitably, more assumption than truth. Whether animals communicate their thoughts, or have thoughts to communicate, it seems beyond our power to ascertain, and the same we may say with respect to their wishes. Do not hunger and thirst make animals express their wants, and do not love, rage, and other passious, make them express their feelings? That they can contemplate the past seems quite proved by their recognising individuals from whom, years ago, they received either caresses or blows. Whether they can conceive and calculate future destinies may remain a question. Tolerable evidence of the communication of events, even among insects, is afforded by the fact of bees announcing to each other the death of their queen, and ants conversing, as it were, with their mandibles and antennæ-a circumstance first discovered, we believe, by the two Hubers. It appears to have been no question with the ancients

"Whether beasts confabulate or not,' as the power of understanding their languages, was attributed to Melampus, Thales, Apollonius, Tiresias, Soloman, and to an Irish Franciscan of the seventeenth century. J. H. F.

Anecdote Gallery.

TIMELY RELIEF.

THE respectable nurse, or confidential female servant, of some young ladies nearly related to the writer, saw one day in walking to Thorpe, (a pretty and populous village near Norwich,) a poor, miserable, half-starved, ragged lad, sitting by the roadside, sharpening a knife: he might have been about fourteen years of age, and his meagre, hag. gard, and wildly despairing looks induced Lucy to speak to him. The poor boy was friendless and forlorn; he had not a farthing wherewith to procure himself food, and had not eaten anything for many hours. He wanted, he said, to go to Yarmouth; but, without money, and without strength from starvation, found he could not proceed to that town. Lucy gave him, with a shilling, a little friendly advice, begging him not to despair, but ever, under the most distressing circumstances, to trust to the care and kindness of his Father in heaven. Perhaps, she could not, in the beautiful words of Coleridge, speak of "the good God who made

and who loves us all;" but she succeeded fully in cheering the mind of the destitute boy, and gratefully thanking her, he walked on to Thorpe, in his way to Yarmouth.

Two years afterwards, Lucy met, and, we believe, on the same road, a tall, fine, happylooking, young man, in a sailor's dress, who accosted her:-" And do you not know me, my kind, my best friend ?" said he, smiling at her air of embarrassinent and surprise: "but no wonder, for I'm somewhat different now, I guess, from what I was when you first beheld me here, and rescued me from destitution and death! When you spoke to me that day, I was sharpening a knife; it was intended for my own throat. So wretched and so hopeless was I, that I had resolved to live no longer: but, blessed be God, he brought you near me, put it into your heart to pity and relieve me; and, whilst your money bought me bread, your words turned away my desperate purpose; all the road going to Yarmouth, I thought of what you had said, and felt that the God who could send a friend at the very moment of need, was indeed a Father, and worthy to be trusted. My errand to Yarmouth was, to endeavour to obtain a situation of some sort in a vessel, where I could make myself useful; my dress tells you I succeeded, and am now, though not rich, far from destitute; besides, what is better, I have friends, and am happy: -all this, under Providence, I owe to you, but how much more, in preventing me from cutting short my own life, another world only can reveal!" M. L. B.

UNTIMELY REFUSAL OF RELIEF.

A BAKER in Paris, a very charitable man, who had always, upon principle, a liard, a centime, a sous, or a roll, to bestow upon the poor, beca.ne, at length, so beset and imposed on, that weary of the visitation of the pauper host, he solemnly vowed he would never more relieve one of them. How often are men made, like Jephthah, to repent of rash vows! And not long after taking this, a miserable object presented himself at the baker's door, imploring a crust of bread for pity's sake-he was starving.- Starving, indeed!" cried the baker; "that's the old story; but I'm not now to be so taken in. March, sirrah!-you'll get nothing here, I assure you!". The emaciated, miserable object crawled away; the boulanger had the curiosity to watch him, and saw, alas! that his tale had been but too true; for many steps he had not proceeded from this benefi cent tradesman's now inhospitable door, ere he fell to the ground dead!

So shocked was the good baker by this circumstance, that he opened his house to a'l beggars as before; and retracting his first yow, made another equally solemn,

TO THE MONKEY THAT DESCENDED IN A PARACHUTE.*

"Teach me like thee, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise."-Pope.

INTRODUCTORY SONNET.

"MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour."
Thine 'twas, oh! Prince of Poesy to sing
Of Satan's scarce imaginable spring,
Horrid descent, through space; and of the flower
Of Human hope that fell in Edeu's bower.

Oh! that the smallest feather of thy wing
For me were left; or that a wish could bring
To my dry pen one drop of thy rich shower.
Then might I tell, and taste of Fame's sweet fruit,
Not of descents that dazzle and appal,-
Of spirits doom'd, and stars that downward shoot,
Of Lucifer, or angel-flights at all;-
Not of the fall of Man, but of a brute:
Oh! then might I relate-the Monkey's Fall!

Oh! for a line as long as his renown,

Or equal to the height at which he sat, (Ye short hexameters, come up to that!) But yester-eve, above the tiptoe town:

Eager before to see him mounting up, More eager now to see him toppling down, With Death to sup!

Few minutes then had pass'd, since I had seen, The creature there like Mahomet's coffin hung, Borne round the gardens with a conscious mien That spoke as with a tougue,

And seem'd in native dialect to say

"I and two human things ascend to-day !" And from his car of wire he freely flung

Glances to all the fair and grins to men,
With nutshells now and then.

"Tis no mere monkey that you here survey," (By looks said he,)

"The lion of the gardens you may see
Even in me!

Who listens to the roaring of the others?
Or minds the Hungarian brothers?
They may for once confess themselves defeated.
And as for Green-he's really too conceited,
If he believes on him these thousands wait;
I pity his poor human vanity.
am the hero of Victoria's fête,

I

Whate'er my fate, on coming down, may be." And so he was! Oh, parish of St. James! Oh, Court exulting in your bright attire! How he eclipsed your gaudiest dukes and dames ! Oh, Aristocracy! were he your sire, You might have worn a crimson robe with grace, But, henceforth, be the crimson in your face. The wearer of that suit a king was born,— Yet how submissive!-see how he submits; As little pride as fear, Cometh his philosophic spirit near: Just like a seer, He sits.

So had we sworn.

See, to his car they chain him-to its bottom,-
Pronounce "a sentence," bid " prepare,"
Yet no wish 'scapes him that the bears had got 'em!
How would a little biped work his grinders,

And storm, and shriek, and tear,
And kick, and curse his binders!
But he he leaves them almost unupbraided,
He in no clap-trap call on freedom raves,
When thus the subject's liberty's invaded;

Nor once cries "Britons never will be slaves !"

On the occasion of the fête given at the Surrey Zoological Gardens in honour of the birth-day of the Princess Victoria,

will like to have the diary of an elephant when not on active service. At what time animals get up who never lie down without being ordered, it is not very easy to say. The elephants are stalled at the foot of some large tree, which shelters them during the day from the extreme heat of the sun; they stand under this tree, to which they are chained by their hind legs. Early in the morning the keeper makes his appearance from his hovel, and throws the respective keys down to the elephants, who immediately unlock the padlocks of the chains, cast themselves loose, and in the politest manner return the keys to the keeper; they then march off with him to the nearest forest, and on their arrival commence breaking down the branches of the trees, selecting those which are most agreeable to their palates, and arranging them in two enormous faggots. When they have collected as much as they think they require, they make witheys and bind up their two faggots, and then twist another to con nect the two, so as to hang them over their backs down on each side, and having thus made their provision, they return home; the keeper may or may not be present during this performance. All depends upon whether the elephants are well trained, and have been long in servitude. Upon their return, the elephants pass the chains again round their legs, lock the padlock, and present the key as before; they then amuse themselves with their repast, eating all the leaves and tender shoots, and rejecting the others. Now when an elephant has had enough to eat, he generally selects a long bough, and pulling off all the lateral branches, leaves a bush at the end forming a sort of whisk to keep off the flies and musquitoes; for although the hide of the elephant is very thick, still it is broken into crannies and cracks, into which the vermin insert themselves. Sometimes they have the following ingenious method of defending themselves against these tormentors-they put the end of their trunk down in the dust, draw up as large a quantity as they can, and turning their trunks over their heads, pour it out over their skin, powdering and filling up the interstices, after which they take the long branch I have before mentioned, and amuse themselves by flapping it right and left, and in all directions about their bodies, wherever the insects may settle.

And now for an instance of self-denial, which I have often witnessed on the part of my friend the large elephant. I have observed him very busy, flapping right and flapping left, evidently much annoyed by the persecution of the musquitoes; by-the-by, no one can have an idea how hard the tigermusquito can bite. I will, however, give an instance of it, for the truth of which I cannot positively vouch; but I remember that once, when it rained torrents, and we were on

a boating expedition, a marine who, to keep his charge dry, had his fore-finger inserted in the barrel of his musket, pulled it out in a great hurry, exclaiming to his comrade," may I be shot, Bill, if one of them beggars ha'n't bit me right through the barrel of my musket." This par parenthèse, and now to proceed: As I said before, the elephant showed, by constant flagellation of his person, that he was much annoyed by his persecutors, and just at that time, the keeper brought a little naked black thing, as round as a ball, which in India I believe they call a child, laid it down before the animal with two words in Hindostanee—“ Watch it,” and then walked away into the town. The elephant immediately broke off the larger part of the bough, so as to make a smaller and more convenient whisk, and directed his whole attention to the child, gently fanning the little lump of of Indian ink, and driving away every mus quito which came near it; this he continued for upwards of two hours, regardless of himself, until the keeper returned. It was really a beautiful sight, and causing much reflection. Here was a monster, whose bulk exceeded that of the infant by at least ten thousand times, acknowledging that the image of his maker, even in its lowest degree of perfection, was divine; silently proving the truth of the sacred announcement, that God had "given to man dominion over the beasts of the field." And here too was a brute animal setting an example of devotion and self-denial, which but few Christians, none indeed but a mother, could have practised.

As I am on the subject, I may as well inform my readers how and in which way this elephant and I parted company, for it was equally characteristic of the animal. The army was ordered to march, and the elephants were called into requisition to carry the tents. The Quarter-Master General, the man with four eyes, as the natives called him, because he wore spectacles, superintended the loading of the animals-tent upon tent was heaped upon my friend, who said nothing, till at last he found that they were overdoing the thing, and then he roared out his complaints, which the keeper explained; but there was still one more tent to be carried, and, therefore, as one more or less could make no difference, it was ordered to be put upon his back. The elephant said no more, but he turned sulky-enough was as good as a feast with him, and he considered this treatment as no joke. Now it so happened that at the time the main street, and the only street of the town, which was at least half a mile long, was crowded to suffocation with tattoos, or little ponies, and small oxen, every one of them loaded with a couple of cases of claret, or brandy, or something else, slung on each side of them, attended by

coolies, who, with their hooting, and pushing, and beating, and screaming, created a very bustling and lively scene. When the last tent was put on the elephant he was like a mountain, with canvass on each side of him, bulging out to a width equal to his own; there was just room. for him to pass through the two rows of houses on each side of the street, and not ten inches to spare: he was ordered by the keeper to go on he obeyed the order certainly, but in what way-he threw his trunk up in the air, screained a loud shriek of indignation, and set off at a trot, which was about equal in speed to a horse's gallop, right down the street, mowing down before him every poney, bullock, and cooley that barred his passage; the confusion was indescribable, all the little animals were with their legs in the air, claret and brandy poured in rivulets down the street, coolies screamed as they threw themselves into the doors and windows, and at one fell swoop the angry gentleman demolished the major part of the comforts of the officers, who were little aware how much they were to sacrifice for the sake of an extra tent. With my eyes I followed my friend in his reckless career, until he was enveloped and hid from my view in a cloud of dust, and that was my farewell of him. I turned round, and observed close to me the quarter-master-general, looking with all his four eyes at the effects of his inhumanity.-Metropolitan.

SABBATH SONNET.COMPOSED BY MRS.

is no more. She died on the night of Satur. day the 16th of May, at Dublin, and met her fate with all the calm resignation of a Christian, conscious that her spirit was winging its flight to another and a better world, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

Without disparagement of the living, we scarcely hesitate to say, that in Mrs. Hemans our female literature has lost, perhaps, its brightest ornament. To Joanna Baillie she might be inferior not only in vigour of conception, but in the power of metaphysically analyzing those sentiments and feelings, which constitute the basis of human action; to Mrs. Jameson in that critical perception which, from detached fragments of spoken thought, can discriminate the links which bind all into a distinctive character;-to Miss Landon in eloquent facility;-to Caroline Bowles in simple pathos;-and to Mary Mitford in power of thought;-but as a female writer, influencing the female mind, she has undoubtedly stood, for some by-past years, the very first in the first rank; this pre-eminence has been acknowledged, not only in her own land, but wherever the English tongue is spoken, whether on the banks of the eastern Ganges, or the western Mississippi. Her path was her own; and shoals of imitators have arisen alike at home, and on the other side of the Atlantic, who, destitute of her animating genius, have mimicked her themes, and parodied her sentiments and language, without being able to

and

AND DEDICATED TO HER BROTHER.

How many blessed groups this hour are bending Through England's primrose meadow paths their way

Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,

Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day. The Halls from old heroic ages grey

Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,

With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways,-to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound;-yet, oh my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfuluess.

We cannot allow these verses to adorn, with a sad beauty, the pages of this (Blackwood's) Magazine-more especially as they are the last composed by their distinguished writer, and that only a few days before her death without at least a passing tribute of regret over an event which has cast a shadow of gloom over the sunshiny fields of cotemporary literature. But two months ago, the beautiful lyric, entitled Despondency and Aspiration, appeared in these pages, and now the sweet fountain of music from which that prophetic strain gushed has ceased to flow. The highlygifted and accomplished, the patient, the meek, and long-suffering FELICIA HEMANS

truth, and intellectual beauty meet together; and assuredly it is not the less calculated to refine the taste and exalt the imagination, because it addresses itself almost exclusively to the better feelings of our nature alone. Over all her pictures of humanity are spread the glory and the grace reflected from purity of morals, delicacy of perception and conception, sublimity of religious faith, and warmth of patriotism; and turning from the dark and degraded, whether in subject or sentiment, she seeks out those verdant oases in the desert of human life, on which the affections may most pleasantly rest. Her poetry is intensely and entirely feminine and, in our estimation, this is the highest praise which could be awarded it-it could have been written by a woman only; for although in the "Records" of her sex we have the female character delineated in all the varied phases of baffled passion and of ill-requited affection; of heroical self-denial, and of withering hope deferred; of devotedness tried in the furnace of affliction, and of

"Gentle feelings long subdued Subdued, and cherished long;" yet its energy resembles that of the dove, "pecking the hand that hovers o'er its mate," and its exaltation of thought is not of the