Or pluck the fruit, whose bloom appears
Bedeck'd with night's refreshing tears;
Or else with magic pencil take

The likeness of some hill or lake,-
Some haunted spot, whose beauty hung
Rich praises on her feeling tongue,-
And these to place in proud surprise
Before a mother's greeting eyes!
Affection, let thy voice declare
How tender sweet such trifles are!
For what is kindness, but the heart
In action, without guile or art,
Imparting by some nameless power,
A bloom to each attractive hour?

But, when bleak winter bares the earth, And comfort hails the wonted hearth, Then, child of beauty! thou art found The central star of bliss around. Some book divine, or antique tale, Or shipwreck, where the savage gale Cries havoc! o'er a howling sea, Perchance, the chosen page may be; Or bard eterne, with visions bright, Shall charm the soul of taste to-night; Or, haply, Music's heaven-born spell, Whose spirit thou canst wake so well, Shall kindle for paternal ears The faded tones of former years; Oh! then adown the tides of song, While thou enwrapt art borne along, Till the bright chamber seems to glow With melody's fine overflow! And full before his bickering fire Delighted sits a dreaming sire; Forgive the mother, if her gaze

Be fill'd with more than fondest praise, And nature whisper through the heart, "My child! how exquisite thou art!"

WHEN I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of observing the actions and propensities of those beings, with whom we can be little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent a fortnight at the house of a friend, where there was such a vivary, to which I paid no small attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands, as it were, on its head; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, the tail turns over, and, at last, it floats on the surface of the water, with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when dead, swim in that manner, is very obvious; because, when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly, the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity, and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter, from its being a cavity, and because it contains the swimming bladders, which contribute to render it buoyant. Some that delight in gold and silver fishes, have adopted a notion that they need no aliment. True it is, that they will subsist for a long time without any apparent food but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed; yet they must draw some support from animalculæ, and other nourishment

supplied by the water; because, though they seem to eat nothing, yet the consequences of eating often drop from them. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet may easily be confuted, since, if you toss them crumbs, they will seize them with great readiness, not to say greediness: however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the water-plant called lemna (duck's meat), and also on small fry.

When they want to move a little, they gently protrude themselves with their pinna pectorales; but it is with their strong muscular tails only that they, and all fishes, shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has been said, that the eyes of fishes are immovable; but these apparently turn them forward or backward, in their sockets, as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce, and seem much frightened, by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such fishes: the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate, as to thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnæus ranks this species of fish under the genus of cyprinus, or carp, and calls it cyprinus auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally, so that you may see a goldfinch or a Linnet hopping, as it were, in the midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleasant; but in so complicated a way becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due to him,

"Qui variare cupit rem prodigialitèr unam."
"Who loves to vary every single thing

Prodigiously."

[When my own fish die, they always remain for some time on the surface of the water. They then act as White describes, but very often float on their backs for several hours before their death. I have had often considerable difficulty in capturing a fish, that lay on its back apparently dead; as at the first touch of the hand it gave a great flounce, and darted about with great rapidity, but soon subsided into the position assumed by the bad shepherd, according to the Eton Grammar. Gold-fish will eat bread and many other artificial aliments. If the fish are kept in a glass globe, they should be transferred to a basin while the water in the globe is being changed, and there fed, or the water will be discoloured. The lower of the two fishes represented is the gold-fish, the upper figure represents the barbel. There are several ponds at Oxford stocked with these beautiful fish, which have increased not only in number, but in size. One pond full came to an untimely end. The pond was partly supplied and warmed by the waste water from a steam engine. One day, some verdigris that had formed in some part of the engine was washed into the pond, and poisoned every one of the fish. Warm water, however, is not necessary, for there are several ponds in Oxford which are frozen over every year, and yet support plenty of goldfish, which may often be seen swimming about under the ice.]Rev. J. G. Wood.

THE MECHANICAL WONDERS OF A FEATHER.

PALEY.

EVERY single feather is a mechanical wonder. If we look at the quill, we find properties not easily brought together, strength and lightness. I know few things more remarkable than the strength and lightness of the very pen with which I am now writing. If we cast our eye toward the upper part of the stem, we see a material made for the purpose, used in no other class of animals, and in no other part of birds: tough, light, pliant, elastic. The pith also which feeds the feathers, is neither bone, flesh, membrane, nor tendon.

But the most artificial part of a feather is the beard, or, as it is sometimes called, the vane, which we usually strip off from one side or both when we make a pen.

The separate pieces of which this is composed are called threads, filaments, or rays. Now the first thing which an attentive observer will remark is, how much stronger the beard of the feather shows itself to be when pressed in a direction perpendicular to its plane, than when rubbed either up or down in the line of the stem; and he will soon discover that the threads of

which these beards are composed are flat, and placed with their flat sides towards each other, by which means, while they easily bend for the approaching of each other, as anyone may perceive by drawing his finger ever so lightly upwards, they are much harder to bend out of their plane, which is the direction in which they have to encounter the impulse and pressure of the air, and in which their strength is wanted.

It is also to be observed, that when two threads, separated by accident, or force, are brought together again, they immediately reclasp. Draw your finger down the feather, which is against the grain, and you break, probably, the junction of some of the contiguous threads; draw your finger up the feather, and you restore all things to their former state.

It is no common mechanism by which this contrivance is effected. The threads or laminæ above mentioned are interlaced with one another and the interlacing is performed by means of a vast number of fibres or teeth which the threads shoot forth on each side, and which hook and grapple together.

Fifty of these fibres have been counted in one twentieth of an inch. They are crooked, but curved after a different manner; for those which proceed from the thread on the side toward the extremity of the feather are longer, more flexible, and bent downward; whereas those which proceed from the side toward the beginning or quill-end of the feather, are shorter, firmer, and turned upward. When two laminæ, therefore, are pressed together, the crooked parts of the long fibres fall into the cavity made by the crooked parts of the others, just as the latch which is fastened to a door enters into the cavity of the catch fixed to the door-post, and, there hooking itself, fastens the door.