blue, marked at half-inches with transverse curves of black; breast and sides, under the wings, a dirty white, faintly stained with purple; inside of the mouth, the tongue, bill, legs and claws, black; iris of the eye, hazle.

"A blue jay, which I have kept for some time, and with whom I am on terms of familiarity, is a very notable example of mildness of disposition and sociability of manners. An accident in the woods first put me in possession of this bird, while in full plumage, and in high health and spirits. I carried him home with me, and put him into a cage already occupied by a gold-winged woodpecker, where he was saluted with such rudeness, from the lord of the manor, for entering his premises, that, to save his life, I was obliged to take him out again.

"I then put him into another cage, where the only tenant was a female orchard oriole. She also put on airs of alarm, as if she considered herself endangered and insulted by the intrusion; the jay, meanwhile, sat mute and motionless on the bottom of the cage, either dubious of his own situation, or willing to allow time for the fears of his neighbor to subside.

"Accordingly, in a few minutes after, displaying various threatening gestures (like some of those Indians we read of in their first interviews with the whites), she began to make her approaches, but with great circumspection, and readiness to retreat. Seeing, however, the jay begin to pick up some crumbs of broken chestnuts in a humble and peaceable way, she also descended, and began to do the same, but, at the slightest motion of her new guest, wheeled round, and put herself on the defensive.

"All this ceremonious jealousy vanished before evening, and they now roost together, feed and play together in perfect harmony and good humor. When the jay goes to drink, his messmate very impudently jumps into the water to wash herself, throwing the water in showers over her companion, who bears it all patiently, venturing now and then to take a sip between every splash, without betraying the smallest token of irritation.

"On the contrary, he seems to take pleasure in his little fellow prisoner, allowing her to perch (which she does very gently) about his whiskers, and to clean his claws from the minute fragments of chestnuts which happen to adhere to them. This attachment on the one part, and mild, conde

scending treatment on the other, may, perhaps, be partly the effect of mutual misfortunes, which are found not only to knit mankind, but many species of inferior animals, more closely together, and shows that the disposition of the blue jay may be humanized, and rendered susceptible of affectionate impressions even for those birds which, in a state of nature, he would have no hesitation in making a meal of."

LESSON VI.

Address to a Child, during a boisterous Winter Evening.ANONYMOUS.

WHAT way does the wind come? what way does he go? He rides over the water, and over the snow,

Through wood, and through vale, and o'er rocky height, Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight.

He tosses about in every bare tree,

As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There's never a scholar in England knows.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook,
And ring a sharp larum; but if you should look,
There's nothing to see but a cushion of snow,
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.

Sometimes he'll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock;
Yet seek him, and what shall you find in the place?
Nothing but silence and empty space,

Save in a corner a heap of dry leaves,

That he's left for a bed, for beggars or thieves!

Hark! over the roof he makes a pause,
And growls as if he would fix his claws
Right in the slates, and with a huge rattle
Drive them down, like men in a battle.

But let him range round; he does us no harm;
We build up the fire, we're snug and warm;
Untouched by his breath, see the candle shines bright,
And burns with a clear and steady light;

Books have we to read-hush-that half-stifled knell,
Methinks 'tis the sound of the eight o'clock bell.

LESSON VII.

Travelling in Asia Minor.-SMIth and Dwight.

For the first four,

OUR morning stage was ten hours. we rode over a broken tract of the richest soil, covered with a thick growth of beech, maple, oak and other forest trees, that, overshading the road, transported me, in imagination, to the recently-settled parts of the United States, and in one place a cultivated field, covered with girdled trees, quite completed the deception. My companion was strongly reminded, by the whole aspect of the country, of the western part of New York, a region endeared to him, not only by its fertility and beauty, but also by the tender associations of home.

The trees became less thick as we advanced, and, in an hour and a half more, crossing the great Melán, here running northward, we entered an extensive and most fertile alluvial plain, partially cultivated, and thinly shaded with large white walnuts. The hollow trunk of one of them

was the house of a Turkish saint.

By having a fire always ready to light the pipe, and a jug of water to quench the thirst of the traveller, and by his comic singing and gestures, plainly indicative of lunacy or foolishness, he obtained in charity sufficient to sustain a life to which the Turks attach an idea of great sanctity. I was surprised to see our tartar, as a salutation, seize him rudely by the beard; but he immediately drew it to his mouth, and, by kissing it, turned what otherwise would have been the most intolerable of insults, into an act of the greatest veneration.

Although the mountain range, which had continued on the right from Isnikmíd, here exhibited upon its top some drifts of snow, this low plain, under the rays of the sun,

from which, until to-day, the clouds had shielded us, was excessively hot; and we were not sorry to be detained at the post-house for horses some five or six hours in the heat of the day.

We now travel tartar in fine style, and I must invite you to look at us as we move over these naked plains. Two horses, the first led by a sürijy (Turkish postilion) upon a separate animal, and the second tied by his halter to the tail of his companion, carry our baggage. Our tartar, with a kalpak (cap) of black lambskin upon his head, some twelve or fifteen inches in length, looking much like a stove-pipe, with a yellow cushion stuffed into its upper extremity, and a heavy whip in his hand, to give force to his frequent exclamation of haideh, rides by their side.

We, metamorphosed into Turks, with unshaven lip and turbaned head, bring up the rear. Every stage, often thirty miles or more, is travelled without allowing our horses a drop of water, and our gait is frequently a rapid gallop; in enduring which, the loaded animals, especially, exhibit a strength and hardiness that quite astonish us. Besides the smart of the tartar's lash, the weight of their load, and the swiftness of their gait, they are subject to many cruel accidents.

A false step, in such rapid travelling, often causes one to stumble, and the other, tied as he is to him, is most ungently and unceremoniously arrested; or, if the ground is hilly, one sometimes rolls down a declivity, and drags his companion reluctantly after him. Their motion is so great, that, snugly as our baggage is packed, not a stage is passed without its turning more than once, so as to bring the girth, sustaining the whole weight of the load, suddenly across the poor animal's back, often already completely excoriated by the chafing of the saddle.

LESSON VIII.

Anecdotes of Birds.

AN Irish peasant had discovered the eyrie of a pair of eagles, on one of the islands in the lake of Killarney; and, watching the absence of the parents, he swam to the island,

climbed to the rocks, made prize of the eaglets, and, dasi ing into the lake, made for the shore; but, before he had reached it, and while only his head was above water, the eagles came, killed him on the spot, and bore off their rescued brood in triumph.

The kingfisher delights in murmuring streams and falling waters; not, however, merely that they may soothe his ear, but for a gratification somewhat more substantial. Amidst the roar of a cataract, or over the foam of a torrent, he sits perched upon an overhanging bough, glancing his piercing eye in every direction below, for his scaly prey, which, with a sudden circular plunge, he sweeps up from their native element, and swallows in an instant.

The pensile grosbeak, an African bird, which is about the size of a house-sparrow, makes a basket-nest of straw and reeds, interwoven into the shape of a bag, with the entrance below, while it is fastened above to the twig of some tree, chiefly such as grow on the borders of streams. On one side of this, within, is the true nest. The bird does not build a distinct nest every year, but fastens a new one to the lower end of the old, and as many as five may be thus seen, one hanging from another. From five to six hundred such nests have been observed crowded upon one tree.

So solicitous is the Baltimore starling to procure proper materials for his nest, that, in the season of building, the women in the country are under the necessity of narrowly watching their thread that may chance to be bleaching, and the farmer to secure his young grafts, as the starling, finding the former, and the strings which tie the latter, so well adapted to his purpose, frequently carries off both; or, should the one be too heavy, and the other too firmly tied, he will work at them for some time before he gives up the attempt. Skeins of silk and hanks of thread. have often been found hanging round his nest.

At

Southey says that, in Spain, the storks build their broad nests on the towers of churches, and are held sacred. Seville, almost every tower in the city is peopled with them, and they return annually to the same nests. One of the causes of their being so much respected, is, that they destroy all the vermin on the tops of the houses. They are so numerous among the ruins of Persepolis, in Persia, that the summit of almost every pillar of those magnificent monuments of antiquity contains a stork's nest.