fix their materials, they plaster them on with their chins, moving their heads with a quick vibratory motion. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot weather, but not so frequently as swallows. It has been observed that martins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests; but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot, stifled inn-yard, against a wall facing to the south.

Martins are by far the least agile of the four species; their wings and tails are short, and therefore they are not capable of such surprising turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow. Accordingly they make use of a placid, easy motion in a middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow kind. In 1772, they had nestlings on to the 21st of October, and are never without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas.

As the summer declines, the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily by the constant accession of the second broods, till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they frequent the aits of that river, where they roost. They

retire, the bulk of them, I mean, in vast flocks together, about the beginning of October; but have appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as late as the 3rd and 6th of November, after they were supposed to have been gone for more than a fortnight. They therefore withdrew with us the latest of any species.

Unless these birds are short-lived, indeed, or unless they do not return to the district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations somehow and somewhere; for the birds that return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire.

From "The Natural History of Selborne," by GILBERT WHITE.

+

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy. For she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.—Wordsworth.

6. TO A WATER-FOWL.

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned

At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone

(1,114)

Will lead my steps aright.

W. C. BRYANT.

3

7. A CAVE ON THE FIORDS.

The cave was really a very pretty place. As its opening fronted the west, Rolf found that even here there might be sunshine. The golden light which blesses the high and low places of the earth did not disdain to cheer and adorn even this humble chamber which, at the bidding of nature, the waters had patiently scooped out of the hard rock.

Some hours after darkness had settled down on the lands of the tropics, and long after the stars had come out in the skies over English heads, this cave was at its brightest. As the sun drew to its setting, near the middle of the Nordland summer night, it levelled its golden rays through the cleft, and made the place far more brilliant than at noon. The projections of the rough rock caught the beam, during the few minutes that it stayed, and shone with a bright orange tint. The beach suddenly appeared of a more dazzling white, and the waters of a deeper green, while by their motion they cast quivering circles of reflected light upon the roof, which had before been invisible.

Rolf took this brief opportunity to survey his abode carefully. He had supposed, from the pleasant freshness of the air, that the cave was lofty; and now he saw that the roof did indeed spring up to a vast height. He saw also that there was a great deal of driftwood accumulated, and some of it thrown into such distant corners as to prove that the waves could dash up to a much higher water-line, in stormy weather, than he

had supposed. No matter! He hoped to be gone before there were any more storms. Tired and sleepy as he was, so near midnight, he made an exertion, while there was plenty of light, to clear away the seaweeds from a space on the sand where he must to-morrow make his fire and broil his fish. The smell of the smallest quantity of burnt weed would be intolerable in so confined a place; so he cleared away every sprout of it, and laid some of the driftwood on a spot above high-water mark, picking out the driest pieces of firewood he could find for kindling a flame.

When this was done, he could have found in his heart to pick up shells, so various and beautiful were those which strewed the floor of his cave; but the sunbeam was rapidly climbing the wall, and would presently be gone: so he let the shells lie till the next night (if he should still be here), and made haste to heap up a bed of fine dry sand in a corner; and here he lay down as the twilight darkened, and thought he had never rested on so soft a bed. He knew it was near high water, and he tried to keep awake, to ascertain how nearly the tide filled up the entrance; but he was too weary, and his couch was too comfortable, for this. His eyes closed in spite of him, and he dreamed that he was broad awake watching the height of the tide. For this one night he could rest without any very painful thoughts of poor Erica, for she was prepared for his remaining out till the middle of the next day at least.

When he awoke in the morning, the scene was marvellously changed from that on which he had