How dissimilar in this respect from their confiding brethren, which prefer the vicinity of man! Every town and hamlet abounds with house-swallows. Our village church is haunted with swifts, and there is scarcely a cottage in the neighbourhood, beneath the eaves of which, the confiding martin has not suspended her cradle.

Beautiful, too, are the manifestations of parental tenderness they afford, and their unwearied assiduity in providing for their young.

You may see them ranging, when the wind is high, to distant downs, and sometimes making excursions on the water. Horsemen, in crossing our extensive commons, are often attended by little troops of these active birds, which sweep around, and collect such insects as are roused by the trampling of the horses' feet. Without this expedient, they would be obliged to settle on the ground in order to pick up the lurking prey.

Avenues and walks screened from the wind, pastures, and meadows, where cattle graze, are also their favourite resorts, especially if they abound with trees, under the deep shade of which the insects generally assemble. The seizing of one of these is accompanied by a smart snap of the bill, resembling the shutting of a watch-case, but the motion of the mandible is too quick for the eye to follow.

At this season, the male swallow watches carefully over the safety of his little companion, and announces the approach of birds of prey. The moment an hawk is seen advancing through the air, he calls with a shrill alarming voice to all the swallows and martins in the neighbourhood: these immediately assemble, pursue in a body, buffet, and strike the enemy, till they have driven him from the village; they even dart upon his back, and rise up in perfect security. These dauntless little birds will also sound an alarm, and strike at any "fell grimalkin" that ventures to approach their nests, or climb the roof, on which they perch.

Equally pleasing is the address exhibited by the chimney-swallow, in securely ascending and descending all the day long through the narrow pass of a chimney flue. She also evinces great sagacity in the progressive method by which her young are introduced to the business of active life. They first emerge from the shaft with considerable difficulty, and are fed for a day on the chimney top. When able to undertake a further journey, they are conducted to the bough of a neighbouring tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity. In the course of a short time, their pinions are sufficiently grown to bear them up, though still unable to provide for them

selves; they are then seen playing round the place where their mother is hawking for flies; and when a few are collected, the nestlings advance at a certain signal, rising towards each other, and meeting in the centre, with such little inward notes of gratitude and complacency, that he who does not observe them must pass over the wonders of creation in a very slight and careless manner.

There are also other young tender creatures, which seem equally to require, though without possessing, a kind parental ministry. How are these protected? By what means can a fragile, shrouded, and incased creature struggle upwards through the garden-mould to life and light? Look narrowly, and you may observe certain acute points, either on the back, or among the ridges of the emerging chrysalis. These, when the time for its great change approaches, enable the then vigorous prisoner to push itself gradually upwards, till its head and trunk emerge from the earth. An opening is then effected, and a beautiful butterfly frequently arises from a dry, unsightly, horny case. Other contrivances facilitate the escape of such, as lie concealed in the bark of trees. Cocoon spinners are provided with a cluster of sharp points on their heads, and with these they readily disengage themselves. This arrangement is very conspicuous in the pupa of the great goat

moth (combyx cossus ;) a creature which, remaining dormant through the winter, wrapped in its silken cocoon, is suddenly inspired, on the return of spring, with an ardent desire to escape. It begins to move, and keeps disengaging itself from its envelope, till it reaches the little opening, by which it entered, when a caterpillar; through this it partly protrudes itself, then stops short, and thus prevents a fall, that might prove fatal. A short rest restores its exhausted strength, the puparium is opened, and the prisoner escapes.

Now, also, insects of the Trichoptera order prepare to cast aside their envelopes, and to leave their watery abodes. They may be seen on the gravelly beds of clear and shallow pools, where they resem

ble little moving pieces of straw, or leaves, wood, or stone; some enwrap themselves in four or five pieces of wood, which they glue together into a neat oblong case; others use for this purpose the leaves of aquatic plants; others, again, make choice of the minute shells of young fresh-water muscles and snails, to form a moveable grotto; while the beautiful caddis-fly weaves together light, bending, fragile stems into an oval case, and in the interior of this she contentedly resides. Yet, however differing in form, a silken grate or portcullis is uniformly affixed at either end. This is of woven silk-it is not soluble in water, and while it admits the aqueous fluid, it keeps out all intruders. When about to throw aside these envelopes, a difficulty occurs. During the period of the insects being in a pupa state, the element that surrounded, could not affect them; but, when assuming a new being, they are unable to breathe in water, and the depth, at which they lie, is often so considerable that their newly-acquired wings cannot bear them through, how, then, is the difficulty to be met? A new exciting influence inclines the pupa to arise out of the water, and to fix itself on some dry leaf, or stone. In order to effect this purpose, the legs and antennæ are not confined in the general envelope; each, with the exception of the hinder one, is free to move,

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