hands, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and skin with these animals; and sometimes he endeavoured to confine them in bottles. He was very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would glide into their bee-gardens, and sitting down before the stools, would rap with his fingers, and so take the bees as they came out. He has even been known to overturn the hives for the sake of the honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding.

In this and the following month, numbers of the shrew-mouse (sorex) may be seen lying in the footpaths dead, or in a dying state. A most singular mortality regularly destroys numbers of these mice. They do not, like most other animals, retire upon the advance of death, but are found in path-ways, and on road sides; they do not appear to have suffered any external injury, nor does any creature that we know of use them as food: yet when the warm days of spring call the survivors from their winter haunts, we hear numbers of them rustling and sporting among the leaves of the sunny hedgerow.

The maritime plants which flower in July, are the club rush (scirpus maritimus), bearded cat's tail grass (phleum crinitum), bulbous fox tail grass (alopecurus bulbosus), the reflexed and creeping meadow grass (poa distans & maritima), the field eryngo (eryngium campestre), parsley water dropwort (ananthe pimpinelloides), smooth sea-heath (frankenia lævis), and the golden dock (rumex maritimus); all of which are to be found in salt marshes.

On sandy shores may be seen the sea mat-weed

(arundo arenaria), upright sea-lime grass (elymus (arenarius), the sea lungwort (pulmonaria maritima), the sea bind-weed (convolvulus soldanella), saltwort (salsola), sea-holly (eryngium maritimum); prickly samphire (echinophora spinosa), and the sea-lavender (statice limonium), are found on maritime rocks; and the sea pea (pisum maritimum) on rocky shores.

"The delights of a still evening,' such as is often witnessed in this and the succeeding month, are thus prettily expressed by the poet :

Now, at the close of this soft summer's day,
Inclined upon the river's flow'ry side,
I pause, to see the sportive fishes play,
And cut with finny oars the sparkling tide.
Silent and still is all creation round;
The rural music of the warblers cease;
A mantling vapour broods across the ground,
And all the elements are hushed to peace.
The setting rays, with various tints o'erspread,
Upon the placid mirror glow confest,
And not a bulrush moves her velvet head;
For not a breeze sighs o'er her glitt'ring breast.
Happy are those whose conscious bosoms are,
Like a declining evening, calm and fair.

VALDARNO.

The seed of the cole or rape is now ripe, and the cutting and threshing it in the field where it is grown is one of those busy scenes which give so much interest to rural life. A large sailcloth is spread upon the ground to thresh it on; the threshers swinging their flails, and the crates or sledges going to and fro, full and empty, with great speed, with their horses and drivers, all bespeak the importance of a fine day for this nice operation.

About the middle or latter end of July, pilchards (clupea pilchardus) appear in vast shoals, off the Cornish coast; and prawns and lobsters are taken in this month.

Grouse-shooting usually commences towards the atter end of July. The angler is busily engaged in his favourite pursuit.

Let us walk where reeds are growing,
By the alders in the mead;
Where the crystal streams are flowing,
In whose waves the fishes feed.

There the golden carp is laving,
With the trout, the perch, and bream;
Mark! their flexile tins are waving,
As they glance along the stream.
Now they sink in deeper billows,
Now upon the surface rise ;
Or from under roots of willows

Dart to catch the water flies.

C. SMITH.

It is now the weather for bathing, a refreshment too little taken in this country, either summer or winter. We say in winter, because with very little care in placing it near a cistern, and having a leathern pipe for it, a bath may be easily filled once or twice a week with warm water; and it is a vulgar error that the warm bath relaxes. An excess, either warm or cold, will relax; and so will any other excess; but the sole effect of the warm bath moderately taken is, that it throws off the bad humours of the body by opening and clearing the pores. As to summer bathing, a father may soon teach his children to swim, and thus perhaps might be the means of saving their lives some day or other, as well as health. Ladies also, though they cannot bathe in the open air as they do in some of the West Indian islands and other countries, by means of natural basins among the rocks, might oftener, we think, make a substitute for it at home in tepid baths. The most beautiful aspects under which Venus has been painted or sculptured, have been connected with bathing; and indeed there is perhaps no one thing that so equally contributes to the three graces of health, beauty, and good temper; -to health, in putting the body into its best state; to beauty, in clearing and tinting the skin; and to good temper, in rescuing the spirits from the irritability occasioned by those formidable personages the

nerves,' which nothing else allays in so quick and entire a manner 1.

If noon be fervid, and no zephyr breathe,

What time the new-shorn flock stands here and there
With huddled head, impatient of the fly-
What time the snuffling spaniel, as he runs,
Pants freely, and laps often at the brook,
To slake the fervour of his feverous tongue---
What time the cow stands knee-deep in the pool,
Lashing her sides for anguish, scaring oft,
With sudden head reversed, the insect swarm
That basks and preys upon her sunny hide-
Or when she flies with tufted tail erect
The breeze-fly's keen invasion, to the shade
Scampering madly-let me wind my way
Tow'rd the still lip of ocean. Seated there,
Soon let me cast habiliment aside,

And to the cool wave give me. Transport sweet!
Pleasure thrice-delicate! Ob, let me plunge
Deep in the lucid element my head,

And, rising, sportful on his surface play.
Oh joy, to quit the fervid gleam of earth,
Leave a faint atmosphere, and soon recruit
Exhausted energy, suspended thus
Upon the bosom of a cooler world!
Oh recreation exquisite, to feel

The wholesome waters trickle from the head,
Oft as its saturated locks emerge!

To feel them lick the hand, and lave the foot
And when the playful and luxurious limb
Is satiated with pastime, and the man
Rises refreshed from the voluptuous flood,
How rich the pleasure to let Zephyr chill
And steal the dew-drops from his panting sides!
Let e'en the saucy and loud Auster blow,
Be but his sea not fierce, nor, save at shore,
The frothy breaker of displeasure show,
Yet will I court the turbulent embrace
Of thee, thou roaring deep: yes, and will share
The bather's richest pleasure, when the foot
Of fear might hesitate, nor dare invade

The thund'ring downfall of the billowy surge.

See that elegant annual Miscellany, entitled 'Literary Pocket Book for 1819,' p. 28.

How joys the bold intruder, then, at large
To flounder porpoise-like, wave after wave
Mounting triumphant, hoisted by the swell—
How climbs with ease, descends, and climbs again
Th' uplifted summit, high as it may seem,
Of the sublimest wave! What if lost earth
Each moment disappear, as the sunk head
Swims through the yawning hollow of the flood;
As often shall it greet the watchful eye,
Seen from the wave-top eminent.

HURDIS.

AUGUST.

SEXTILIS was the antient Roman name of this month, being the sixth from March. The Emperor Augustus changed this name, and gave it his own, because in this month Cæsar Augustus took possession of his first consulship, celebrated three triumphs, reduced Egypt under the power of the Roman people, and put an end to all civil wars.

Remarkable Days

In AUGUST 1821.

1.-LAMMAS DAY.

THIS day, in the Romish church, is generally called St. Peter in the Fetters, in commemoration of this apostle's imprisonment. It is probably derived, from an old Saxon term, signifying Loaf-Mass; as it was customary for the Saxons to offer an oblation of loaves made of new wheat, on this day, as the first-fruits of their new corn.

6.-TRANSFIGURATION. Though this day was observed in remembrance of our Lord's Transfiguration on the Mount, by the primitive Christians, yet it is but of recent date in the church of Rome; as it was not instituted by Pope Calixtus until the year 1455.