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FANCIES ABOUT A LOCK OF HAIR.

BY S. D. ANDERSON.

WHAT is this dream that o'er me now.
Comes with its bright and sunny spell,
As starlight falls on childhood's brow?
Haply this lock of hair can tell.

Ah me! how thoughts of early years
Are linked with this dear gift of thine-
The doubts, the memories, and the tears
That cluster round this bygone shrine.
The air seems filled with boyhood's flowers,
The perfume of the summer fields;
The dreams and gladness of the hours
That freshness to our pathway yields.

Times when the heart was glad and young,
A thousand scenes of love and truth,
That, rose-like, from our track have sprung,
Amid the dreamy times of youth.

Hours when each gushing fount of life
Leaped high amid this desert wild,
Come angel-like to calm the strife,
As once they did when Eden smiled.

Not often on life's beaten track

Come such rich summer times,

To bring the heart's pure sunshine back,
Like old remembered rhymes.

But now I see, deep in a wood,

Two lovers 'neath the trees so hoary; She, blushing to the solitude

Beneath his simple touching story;
Her sweet face coyly turned away,

To hide the thoughts that on her cheek
Are mantling like the wakened day
Upon the mountain's highest peak.

And he, perhaps some poet who

Had filled the world with golden dreams, Hopes, that around his path upgrew,

As wild flowers deck the singing streams.

And thus, as hand in hand they go,
He tells her much we may not hear-

How his heart swelled to overflow Under a sky so dark and drear

How on the soul came Care and Pain,
Twin-sisters of the soulless Real,

The race and haggle for the gain

That those who win the world must feel.

The striving to become a part

Of that great sea whose tideings ever

Bears on its waves each manly heart,
That, struggling, droops its pinions never.

And now there is a bridal throng
Slow winding through the moss-grown aisle;
The ring, the vow, the nuptial song-
From age a tear, from youth a smile.

A cot with jessamine-covered door,
A streamlet singing all the day,
And on the dew-bespangled floor

A thousand golden sunbeams play.

Gay groups of happy children there,
The old oak and the breathless swing,
The shouts of laughter on the air,

The chaplets that the young girls bring.
All's gone! except these gushing tears,
Sad relics of the joyous past,
The shrines that memory uprears

To shield the incense from the blast.

Some sleep beneath the ocean's wave,

Some 'neath the flowers that loved ones tend, Others have found an early grave

Where stranger skies above them bend,

And she, the cherished one, she sleeps
Beneath the violet-covered earth,
Where spring-time's earliest cloudlet weeps
And roses have a dewy birth.

Enough, she sleeps-would that my dreams
Could rest forever by her side,
As peaceful as the morning beams
Are pillowed on the sleeping tide.

THE PRECIOUS REST.

BY RICHARD COE, JR.

ONCE on a lovely summer day,
I saw a little child at play,

While in a garden straying-
Till suddenly I heard him say,
"I am tired with playing!"
Then running to his father he
Laid down his head upon his knee,
And slept, oh! how contentedly?

So life is but a summer day,
And man-a little child at play-

While through the world a-straying: And often, too, we hear him say,

"I am tired with playing!" Till hast'ning to his Father, he Lays down his head upon his knee, And rests, oh! how contentedly!

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The Goatsucker, Night Hawk, and seventeen other species belong to the same genus as the Whip-poorwill. Of these fifteen belong to America. Nuttall has the following remarks on some of these.

THIS singular bird is found throughout the greater | of a beautiful mottled-brown, relieved by other colors. portion of the United States, and by the notes from It is noted for an extravagantly large mouth, beset on which it derives its name is known to almost every each side with thick bristles, and for a very strong farmer. The species was long considered identical bill. The female is less in size than the male, and with the Night Hawk; but this fallacy was fully ex- rather lighter colored. She begins to lay toward the posed by Wilson. The Whip-poor-will appears in middle of May, choosing for this purpose a dry situathe Middle States toward the end of April, when its tion, covered with brush, decayed leaves, etc., but low, sad wail, may be heard at evening along the building no nest. The eggs are two in number, dark creeks and by the woods of the country. So pecu- and marbled. The young appear early in June. liarly mournful is this sound that the ignorant almost invariably consider it an omen of approaching evil. By the Indians it is regarded as a spirit-voice, boding death or perhaps national calamity. The bird articulates pretty distinctly the syllables whip-poor-will, the first and last being uttered with great emphasis. A kind of chuckling sound sometimes precedes the principal tone. At these times the bird is generally on the wing, flying close to the ground in the manner of swallows, and sometimes skimming around houses. The notes of the Whip-poor-will are continued until about midnight, and on fine moonlight nights until morning. The shady banks of creeks and rivulets are favorite haunts. During the day they remain in the darkest parts of the forest, hushed to silence like owls, and apparently annoyed at the presence of sunlight. The cry of the Whip-poor-will is not heard after the middle of June; and early in September it departs for the south.

"But if superstition takes alarm at our familiar and simple species, what would be thought by the ignorant of a South American kind, large as the Wood Owl, which, in the lonely forests of Demerara, about midnight, breaks out, lamenting like one in deep distress, and in a tone more dismal even than the painful hexachord of the slothful Ai. The sounds, like the expiring sighs of some agonizing victim, begin with a high, loud note, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ha! ha!' each tone falling lower and lower, till the last syllable is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between this reiterated tale of seeming sadness.

"Four other species of the Goat-sucker, according to Waterton, also inhabit the tropical wilderness, among which is included our present subject. Figure The Whip-poor-will is nine inches and a-half long, to yourself the surprise and wonder of the stranger

WILD BIRDS OF

AMERICA.

209

who takes up his solitary abode for the first night | fully cries, willy come go, willy-willy-willy amidst these awful and interminable forests, when, come go!' and as you get among the highlands, our at twilight, he begins to be assailed familiarly with a old acquaintance vociferates, whip-poor-will, whip spectral equivocal bird, approaching within a few-whip-whip-poor-will! It is, therefore, not suryards, and then accosting him with who-are-you, prising that such unearthly sounds should be conwho-who-who are you? Another approaches, sidered in the light of supernatural forebodings issuand bids him, as if a slave under the lash, work- ing from spectres in the guise of birds." away, work-work-work-away! A third, mourn

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This lively and beautiful bird is widely diffused | interweaves or fabricates a strong, firm kind of cloth, through the United States under the names of Oriole, Hanging-Bird, Golden Robin, Fire Bird, and Baltimore Bird. According to Catesby, the latter name originates from the colors of its plumage being the same as that of Lord Baltimore's livery. It is seven inches in length. The head, throat, and upper part of the back, are black, and the remaining portions bright orange, inclining to vermilion on the breast, with some white among the feathers of the wings. The colors of the female are less bright than those of the male, and she is somewhat smaller. The male does not acquire his full plumage until the third spring, undergoing in the intermediate time many singular changes.

The Oriole family are distinguished for the singular manner of building. "For this purpose," says Wilson, "he generally fixes on the high-bending extremities of the branches, fastening strong strings of hemp or flax round two forked twigs, corresponding to the intended width of the nest. With the same materials, mixed with quantities of loose tow, he

not unlike the substance of a hat in its raw state, forming it into a pouch of six or seven inches in depth, lining it substantially with various soft substances well interwoven with the outward netting, and lastly, finishes with a layer of horse-hair; the whole being shaded from the sun and rain by a natural pent-house or canopy of leaves." The solicitude of the Baltimore to obtain proper materials for his nest, often leads him to commit depredations on the farmer's hemp, or the thread and silk of the housewife. Skeins of these materials have been found in the nest after its being deserted by the young.

According to Nuttall, the Oriole possesses a propensity to imitate other birds. He is particular in describing their natural notes. "The mellow-whistled notes which they are heard to trumpet from the high branches of our tallest trees and gigantic elms, resemble at times, tshippe-tshayia too too, and 'tshippee-'tshippee, too too, (with the two last syllables loud and full.) These notes are also varied so

as to resemble 'tsh, 'tsh 'tsheetshoo tshoo tshoo,* also tsh, 'tsheefa 'tsheefa tshoo and 'k'tufătuƒ a túf a téa kerry. Another bird I have occasionally heard to call for hours, with some little variation, tu teo teo teo too, in a loud, querulous, and yet almost ridiculously merry strain. At other intervals, the sensations of solitude seem to stimulate sometimes a loud interrogatory note, echoed forth at intervals, as k'rry kerry? and terminating plaintively k'rry k'rry tu, the voice falling off very slenderly in the last long syllable, which is apparently an imitation from the Cardinal Grosbeak, and the rest is derived from the Crested Titmouse, whom they have heard already in concert as they passed through the warmer states. Another interrogatory strain which I heard in the spring of 1830, was precisely 'yip 'k'rry, 'yip 'yip k'rry, very loud and oft repeated. Another male went in his ordinary key, tsherry tsherry, tshipee

*The first three of these notes are derived from the summer Yellow Bird, though not its usual notes.

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tsh'rry, notes copied from the exhaustless stock of the Carolina Wren, (also heard on his passage,) but modulated to suit the fancy of our vocalist. The female likewise sings, but less agreeably than the male."

This particularity in describing sounds which are almost indescribable may seem frivolous to some of our readers, but those who have ever listened to the melting notes of the Baltimore Oriole will pardon this accurate observer of nature the attempt.

The common food of the Oriole is insects, espe cially a species of small beetle. They are said to love the honey in the blossoms of trees. If domes ticated, they must still be fed on animal food, principally minced meat, soaked in milk. When adult, they will also eat fruit-cakes and meal. They are not difficult to tame, and form a pleasant pet. Their eggs are four or five in number, white, with dark lines and spots. In the Southern States they sometimes raise two broods; but further northward only one. The Oriole extends over the continent as far

The last phrase loud and ascending, the tea plaintive, south as Brazil, where hundreds of nests are found in

and the last syllable tender and echoing,

every forest.

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