Ichneumon, seen very common in summer, busily hurrying about sunny walls; black, banded with red or yellow, and having a very long tail, her antennæ in a very vivid state of vibration. This tail is her ovipositor, with which she pierces the fat bodies of poor lazy caterpillar grubs, and fills their carcases full of her eggs; thus loaded, the poor worm goes on feeding, and even passes into the state of chrysalis; but when his mummy case comes to burst, instead of disclosing a single butterfly, beautiful in virgin purity, a nest of young vermin swarm out, the issue of the ichneumon.— This busy and intrusive fly may all summer be seen, poking and searching into small holes, where erucæ have retired to "wait 'till their change come;' and then thrusting in backward to deposit her eggs. When I contemplate the insect tribe with their splendid wings and shields, their laminated armour, panoply complete, of burnished green, purple, and gold, cinctured with belts, and (one class) armed with very formidable weapons; they seem like knights and champions repairing to some magnificent tournament, held on some high festival, at the Court of Oberon, King of Fairyland. And there I at present must reluctantly leave them, and hurry hurry on.

Much, and mayhap too truly fearing that I weary you, my indulgent hearers, not by my matter, but my dull inability to handle it, I must omit the Reptiles, though replete with interest, from the earth-worm, with his always 142 rings, the frog; the toad, with the precious jewel in his head; the harmless lizard; the wily snake; up to the enormous and frightful crocodile. I have little, too, I can make interesting about the Fishes, which are classed by their fins; pectoral, dorsal, abdominal, ventral, anal. An extremely numerous and strangely-formed tribe; whether natives of the still pools, the cheerful rivers, or the gloomy caverns of the mighty Deep. They are pleasing to the eye from their brilliance, lubricity, and grotesque appearance, armed with spines for defence, with swords and saws, and some even endowed with a limited power of flight. I pass therefore to the Birds, forming the very pleasing science of Ornithology; and these are classed by their claws and bills. This airy, clean, and admirable tribe contribute very much to our amusement, by enlivening the air in their flight, and the groves with their delightful melodies. They are interesting in their habits, their nidification, and some in their migration; a circumstance that has considerably perplexed ornithologists; and over which a cloud of obscurity still hovers. But that they do migrate, there is no doubt; I mean the mass; not but that occasionally, and that very rarely, individuals either from disease, disability, or immaturity, may remain here torpid.— And when they return from migration, I believe they invariably repair to the very places they left. Of this I have made some very strong proofs; and as when I commenced this very loose Lecture, it was not my intention to abide by much order or regularity, I may just as well narrate it now it

occurs.

A garret window in my house was accidentally left open, and a pair of rustic swallows built their fretted nest among the rafters, at which I was much pleased; and when they had hatched and reared their young, both they and their parents, finding they were favourites, continued to play about the room all summer, and always roosted in it at night. Before they departed, a thought struck me to play them an innocent trick. One night I shut the window, and took them all in an angler's landing-net, and fastened round their necks, without hurting them, a ring made of the very

fine silvery wire that laps the lower strings of a violoncello. At this they took no offence, but played about till their departure, as if unmolested.— At their appointed period they vanished, with their friends; and the following spring the window was carefully set open for their admission; and they came accordingly after "the daffodils had taken the winds of March with beauty;" and to my great delight, four had the rings. One pair re-occupied, after repairing, the old nest; and another pair, or more, built in the room. This experiment I repeated, with more or less success for three or four years, but always found that some returned. At last, emboldened by their kindness and constancy, having a pretty little Greek story in my mind, I ventured to affix on the neck of one, a thin round piece of copper, on which I engraved in Latin, (being the tongue most universally known) qúo abis à Salopiâ? But whether he perished, or whether he met with his friend the gentle Athenian, I wot not; for alas! he returned unto me no more. The spotted flycatcher constantly builds under a piazza at my house; and I have no boubt of its being the same bird, or some of her progeny. Birds, too, always keep the same haunts. I was working in a wood at a distance from any house; and while I was eating my bread and cheese, a robin lit on the handle of my spade: by a sudden sweep of the arm I caught him, and in frolic, cut off his tail. I have since observed that bob-tail bird never wanders far from that spot. The people say, if your burn a bird's tail, he will never leave the house. The fact is, he will never leave his beat; and by being marked, he becomes noticed. I have made repeated trials. I keep suspended trenchers (which I humourously call the Ornithotrophe) on which I feed birds; and sometimes I mark them; and have even noticed that birds visiting that at the east window of my book-room, will not visit that by the south window of my dining-room, nor the contrary.

Of this

It is very much to be lamented, the utter impossibility of recording the melodies of birds by musical notes, or any other means. They divide at intervals less than those of the enharmonic scale; so the case is absolutely hopeless. The cuckoo is perhaps the only bird that, however ridiculous it seem, scientifically speaking, is musical. When he first arrives his two plain, but far from unpleasing, notes, fall a major third, which may be expressed by the notes B. and G.; but ere his departure this third melts into a minor, as B. flat and G. I have sometimes heard a blackbird sound a 4th above, and a 3rd below a given note, successively, but by no means often. White has a beautiful chapter on this; indeed his book is all beautiful; but I cannot agree with him that owls always hoot in one key. To my taste, the blackcap is by far the most delicious of all our warblers, not even excepting the nightingale; and honest White's crowd of epithets for this Poet of Birds, is worth quoting: he has a fine, deep, sweet, rich, loud, wild pipe." Though I have carefully avoided the introduction of Greek or Latin into this discourse, and that even in names, unless where inevitable, it must tickle the ears of all my audience with pleasure when I recite the short, but highly animated description Linnæus flings on our celestial warbler the skylark: it is not indeed altogether Latin, but repetition of a word invented to imitate the gurgled notes of that delightful bird. After describing the bird, and his ascent towards heaven, pouring his full song in praise of his Creator-(which thought probably struck him from the name of the bird-a-lauda—à laude Deo)-he says-" Ecce suum tirile, tirile,

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suum tirile tractat." Being unacquainted with the English tongue, we can hardly suppose he had read our Shakspeare, who, singular to say, speaking of the same bird, uses almost the very same coined word: the lark, that tirra lira chaunts," and uses the word chaunt two, as applying to sacred song.

I may here just observe, in passing, another coincidence between these two great men, whose fine and fanciful minds were so deeply and deliciously imbued with the Spirit of Nature: the same flower which the Naturalist calls primula elatior, the Poet calls the bold oxlip. I believe it is acknowledged the birds of our country, however inferior in plumage, far surpass those of any other in melody. The gaudy-coloured natives of the vast woods of America, though some indeed excel in song, have a tendency to gabbling, and to imitate the human voice; whose singular noises are described with very animated, but eccentric spirit, in Mr. Waterton's very amusing Wanderings in Demerara; and he, naturally enough, makes them all speak English. As for instance, one says, "who are you? who are you?" Another, Willy come go, Willy come go." A third, "Work away, work away.' A fourth, Whip poor Will, whip poor Will." And he mentions a bird called the Campanero, or Bell-bird, that in the stillness of the air, may be heard three miles, tolling at intervals, like the bell of a distant convent.

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This romantic, but still perhaps authentic writer, who rides upon alligators, and cuts huge snakes asunder, while they are actually constricting his body, even gives us instructions how to mock the strange noises of the birds of Cayenne; some of whom, he says, moan like persons in pain; some croak like toads; others yelp like dogs; while many more resemble the working of masons, carpenters, and sawyers. These, with the solemn peal of the bell-bird, one would think, rivalled what is humorously called a Dutch Concert, where every performer plays a different piece, and all the instruments are out of tune. Nature, however, always just, balances her gifts with a kind and even hand; and what she denies in one acquisition, imparts in another. Though the musical powers of the birds of these regions are so low, the brilliance of their feathers is superb and dazzling in the exuberance of richness. Some time ago a Lady sent me, enclosed even in a letter, from Pensylvania, the bodies of two humming-birds: a very copious and amazingly elegant tribe. The breast of one at first appeared black, but on moving it so as to receive the light in its proper angle, the plumage instantly assumed a scarlet glow absolutely as vivid as red hot iron. These two birds, of which there are more than a hundred species, did not in size exceed that of many of our moths; nor indeed equal that of the Death's-head moth. We have a day-moth called Sphinx stellatarum, that very much resembles the humming-bird, and like him, hovers over the flowers of jasmine, honey-suckle, and many others, sucking out the nectar with its long proboscis, without ever alighting. The vivid green, that so chastely contrasts with the white and extraordinary feathers of the Birds of Paradise, is even more brilliant than is coloured glass with the help of sunshine. Indeed the green on the necks of our Doves is beautifully brilliant; and is infused, at a change of the angle of light, with a dash of crimson, whence the specific name of the common pidgeon,oenas, from a Greek word signifying wine, and one of the Latin names is Vinago.

Being on the plumage of birds, it is a fitting place to mention another circumstance, which, though not so brilliant and dazzling as that I have just left, is perhaps to the contemplative mind far more interesting. I mean the adaptation of colours, whether uniform or mixed, to the places they inhabit. The backs of most birds that rest on the ground are brown, dashed a little with yellowish green, in consonance with the soil or clothing of the earth. And I have often observed flights of terns, with their bluish backs, as they flew over the calm sea, become quite invisible, save when they just turned up their white bellies; which also harmonized with the small curling blue waves just edged with white. The back and tail of the common pheasant, so resemble the colour and cross leafits of fern and fallen leaves whereon she sits, that to a cursory glance she seems part of them. I have seen that very interesting bird, the Nightjar, sit on grey yarn put out to bleach on a garden grass walk; and frequently on a grey licheny board of some old hovel, or bee-bench; and indeed its usual place is on the thick old branch of some oak, covered with grey moss, where it squats, head downwards, and most exactly resembles a knurly knot of the tree, rough and hoary. And not only are many birds gifted with plumage appropriate to their concealment, but even assume attitudes resembling the objects around the places whereon they sit. This is very frequent in the birds of prey, eagles, kites, and falcons; and I have often been surprised, after having sat for some time myself on crags of rocks in Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland, gazing on the prospect, at the flight and scream of these birds from one of the clusters of pinnacles very near me; and have often detected them silently perched on the points of broken rocks, which they intensely resembled in colour and shape. The heron, too, will stand on one of a group of blue stones motionless, watching fishes; and almost invisible but to the keen and searching eye of a naturalist; as will the brown flycatcher on the point of a pole or stake, of which he seems a part. This quality is not confined to birds, but runs through the quadrupeds, fishes and insects. The hare when sitting, may be passed and re-passed by an incurious person, from the close affinity of her fur to the dry feg in which she squats; and the azure colour of the backs of fishes, when viewed from a rock or bank above, prevents their being readily seen, did they not occasionally shew their silvery sides, which betrays them to the keen eye of the king-fisher or cormorant.

Thus, had I time to moralize (for Nature is an interminable volume of Ethics) there is safety in plainness, while the display of splendour leads to destruction. Many worms not only are exactly of a colour with the bark on which they reside, but even by their conformant and motionless attitude, seem a portion of the branch. Again, this conformity adapts itself to the season. The very intelligent guide who conducted me to the heights of Ben Nevis, told me the hares in those regions became white in winter; and when the snows were gone, resumed their former colour, of the grey mossy stones. Here I saw the ptarmigan, or white grouse, white as the eternal snow of that elevated mountain; a vast height for birds to reside at; but Humbolt found the Condor on Chimborazo at the altitude of 21,000 feet. I fear my discourse is getting intrusive and wearisome; and yet I have much I feel I could say, and grieve to think of the multitudes I omit.

Before I abandon the feathered race, a touch at one or two of their habits may enliven your tired attention, my kind and courteous auditors.

In crossing the Firth of Forth from Fifeshire to Edinburgh, I saw the Gannet, somewhat of a swan-like form, but not so graceful; he rose from the sea, slowly and spirally into the air to an amazing height, until he became " scarce gross as a beetle," and from that altitude, which gave him impetus, plunged like a stone into the water, which whitened for a moment all around him; after a short interval he arose in another place, having a large fish in his beak placed crosswise, which, with a spring of his long neck, he whirled into the air, and we saw the sun glitter on its scales as it vibrated; this he caught perpendicularly into his capacious throat, as he always does with unerring certitude. I have often observed the common heron when fatigued, if there be a slight breeze, will lean on one side, using one wing for a rudder and the other for a sail. I believe many birds do this; and they change them when tired. Birds, too, in the construction and locality of their nests, often display much adaptation.— The merry little wren, if she builds in an old stump, cloathes the outside of her covered and capacious nest with brown dry leaves; but if in a post of green moss, she engrottoes her habitation with the same verdant material. I once myself took a useful hint from this; for having grafted some pink hawthorns on the common hedge one, near a road, and fearful lest wicked and coarse passengers (having the Organ of Destructiveness! or rather from the want of education) might pelt off the clay with stones, I encoated it with lichen and grey moss, exactly resembling that on the bark of the hawthorns. Man without education is not fit to associate even with what he calls brutes; indeed they in many instances far surpass him, in tenderness, docility, and knowledge; and are more fit to afford him instruction, than receive it from him. By education I do not mean the mere acquisition of words, but that of useful and ornamental knowledge, that has a visible and practical influence on his conduct; for which Nature has endowed him with such superior capabilities for cultivation. Yet by neglecting these, or depraving them, he reduces himself to a far more pitiable and execrable monster than those he names brutes; most of which are gentle, generous, and docile by nature; and often with very little instruction from ingenious and benevolent men, acquire habits extremely useful this to them is education.

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Of the animals denominated quadrupeds and mammalious, I need not enter on a division scientifically; as so many of them are domesticated, and others in a state of nature so well and universally known, that my patient audience will gladly dispense with my detailing, as I have other more important remarks yet behind. Some, however, may yet have to learn, and be surprised at so learning, that the whale is not a fish, but belongs to the same class as man himself, and suckles her young. So does the bat, whose very expressive countenance, fine blue and animated eyes, resemble very much the features of a woman; and I have seen the female flying about with the young hanging at her breast. Of the comforts afforded us by the cow, in the almost numberless luxuries that peaceful and gentle animal affords our tables, it would be as needless to speak, as of the light of the sun and of the utility of the horse, of whose docility in acquiring accomplishments (if so they may be called) those in our theatres have given ample display; the necessity of which however, I think, argues great want of education in the spectators; though mayhap full as rational as operadancing, or opera-singing. We have read of our countryman Banks and