Take of cloves one drachm; of sarsaparilla root sliced and sassafras shavings, each two oz.; boiling water, three pints. Let them simmer several hours, so as to have two pints remaining when strained; add to which, powdered Rochelle salts two oz.; cream of tartar two oz. A wine glassful to be taken in the morning before breakfast, and repeated between meals two or three times a day, according to its action on the system, and continue it for a week or ten days as may be required. This preparation may be made without the cloves, which are added merely for the purpose of preventing the mixture from decomposing in three or four days.]

A Wagtail in a Cage.-Some say the wag-tail will not live happy in a cage, and that it will not sing. To prove the contrary, mine, which is two years old next June, is now coming into song very free. He is also tame and handsome. I shall be proud to show him to any of your readers who are passing 12 John Street, Old Kent Road, near the Bricklayers' Arms.-E. GODFREY.

[Our correspondent's P.S. is so original and "smart," that we really must print it. Should any one,' says he, call during my absence, if they can veat' like the nightingale, Wag will soon answer."]

THE BRITISH WARBLERS.

BY THE LATE R. SWEET, F.S.A.--NO. V.

WE come next, to notice the REDSTART, Sylvia Phænicurus. This is a very elegant and interesting species of the Warblers, and a good songster. Its food is precisely the same as the last species we described. In confinement it will sing by night as well as by day, if a light be kept in the room where it is. It will soon get very tame and familiar, and will be much attached to the person who feeds it. If brought up from the nest it may be taught to sing any tune that is whistled or sung to it. One that I was in possession of some years ago, learnt to sing the Copenhagen waltz, that it had heard frequently sung. It would however sometimes stop in the middle of it and say chipput, a name by which it was generally called, and which it would always repeat every time I entered the room where it was, either by night or day. In Winter it would generally begin singing in the evening as soon as the candle was lighted, and would often sing as late as eleven o'clock at night. When it was hung out of the door, in the cage, which it frequently was, the sparrows would often come round it. It seemed particularly fond of them, and it learnt their note, and would chirp and imitate their call so exact, that any person who did not know to the contrary, would have supposed it to be the sparrows chirping. The Redstart, in a wild state, chiefly visits gardens, lanes, and old buildings; and feeds on various

kinds of insects, but seems to prefer the ant and their eggs. In Spring, when it first arrives in this country, it mounts to the top of the loftiest trees, where it will sit and sing for hours, beginning in the morning by daybreak. The earliest time of their arrival that I ever noticed was the 25th March. Some years they come over at the beginning of April, and sometimes not till the middle of that month. It seems to be a very peevish and fretful bird, often shaking its tail, and repeating a quick shrill note, as if it was in fear. One that I once reared from the nest, was often allowed to come out of its cage into the room. wanted to be got in, and not being willing One day when to go, it was driven round the room a few times, which vexed it so much that it would take no food afterwards, though restored to its liberty. It remained sulky for three days, and then died. Under the head “Redstart," in his Appendix, Mr. Sweet says:

I have now a beautiful male bird of this species which I have possessed for six years; it always keeps itself in as good health and in as fine plumage as if flying wild in the open air, continuing in song the greater part of the year. It is certainly the most sensible and cunning species of the tribe, and becomes very much attached to any person who notices it. Mine flew out of its cage about two years since, and got away into the garden, where it continued six or seven hours; it then returned to its cage, caught. In the year 1825, I saw a female of a wild bird when first although it was this species so late as 21st November, in Camera Square, Chelsea. It was flying about as lively as if it had been Midsummer.

Note.-Dr. Latham, in his "Index Ornithologicus," classes a large number of species under the Genus Sylvia, which plan Mr. Sweet seems differently arranged by Naturalists. The Genus Sylvia now only includes three varieties—S, Hippolais, S, Sibilatrix, and S, Trochilus. The

to have followed. These however, are now

others are divided into different Genera, as Philomela (the Nightingale); Curruca (the Whitethroat); Salicaria (the Aquatic Warbler); Saxicola (the Chat); Phanicura (the Redstart). Latham also includes others, such as the Robin (Erythaca rubecula); Common Wren (Troglo dytes Europeus); Golden Crested Wren (Regu lus Auricapillus); Hedge Sparrow (Accentor Modularis) &c., under this tribe. The Redstart viz.:-Phanicura Rutacilla.-E. C., Liverpool, now bears the generic name given by Swainson

THE LAST IMPROVEMENT IN POACHING.—

During the latter end of the past partridge season, several shooters succeeded in making partridges lie, by the ingenious plan of flying a kite over the field in which they were ranging, with a stuffed hawk attached to it by a string. The result was that the birds were afraid to rise till the dogs were close upon them.-[Noble sport!!]

MAN AND WOMAN;

A Romance of Real Life.

"Frailty! thy name is woman."--SHAKSPEARE.

THERE are very few of us who know anything of human nature, that will not enter at once into the spirit of the subjoined most interesting sketch, which we have abridged from one of a series of papers, called the "Fly," in our excellent and useful contemporary, the Family Herald. These papers, we have before remarked, emanate from a lady-one every way deserving the title, and one thoroughly versed in the ins and outs of society at large. The parties represented arc-a gentleman lover, and his fiancée; also some of our domestic gossips. The picture altogether is so good, that it deserves a place in the public's Own JOURNAL. What a lesson does it not teach us, if we be wise enough to "take!"

There is something about the appearance of a lover going to visit his "heart's idol" that betrays him to an observant eye. His step so elastic, his eyes so bright, his dress so spruce, his "chin new-reaped," his hair so elaborately brushed and perfumed in everything his feelings and his errand are manifest. I saw such a one mount nimbly to the outside of an omnibus one afternoon, so I resolved immediately to accompany him. The omnibus went out into one of those quiet regions where semi-detached villas try to look countryfied in the midst of their little nebulous gardens, in which the grass bears evidence of having been recently transported from some ill-cultivated field; and a few saplings, like aspiring Cockney boys, who ape the manners of men, do their best to look like trees. The suburb into which we were carried was in a state of greater maturity than this. By constant care the coarse and weedy grass had become respectable garden turf, and the trees were nearly as tall as the houses, affording shady nooks that were really refreshing after the noise and dust of London.

"Is Miss Winton at home?" asked my gentleman, of the smart damsel who answered his summons at the gate of one of the villas.

"No, sir, but I expect her in very soon; and she opened the gate wide, inviting him to enter.

"I will wait, then," he replied, after a momentary hesitation, as though undecided whether to stay or to go away, and punish her at the expense of both. He was evidently much chagrined, for the brightness had left his face, and his brow was darkened. The girl opened the door of an elegantly-furnished room, and he went moodily in, and threw himself into a chair. "How is Mrs.

Winton?" he asked hastily, as the girl was quitting the room.

"Much the same, sir, thank you. She never leaves her chamber now. Shall I take any message, sir?"

My kind regards, and I am sorry to hear she is no better," he replied.

The servant withdrew, and he was left to his own thoughts, in the quiet of that almost rural apartment. No sound broke the deep hush of the summer's afternoon, except the slow flapping of the windowblinds as the faint breeze stirred them; and the monotonous hum of a stray bee, that was busy among a vase of fresh flowers. He took up a book, and threw it aside-another, and another-all seemed vapid and dull. Then he walked to one of the windows, and looked out into the small garden at the back of the house. It was well kept, and full of flowers; and by the wall that divided it from the next garden, there was a pleasant seat, shaded from the sun by thick evergreen shrubs. He stepped out of the window, which opened to the ground, and ensconced himself in this comfortable place. He was annoyed and vexed at Miss Winton's absence, but the perfect stillness and the heat of the weather overcame him; he was beginning to yield to a sensation of drowsiness, when a voice on the other side of the leafy screen fell upon his ear. turned his head, and saw that the speaker was the same girl who had admitted him into the house. He seemed about to move or cough, to warn her of his proximity, but the first words she uttered held him breathless.

He

"Polly! Polly!" she cried, leaning over the low wall, and calling to some one in the "he's come! Miss neighboring garden, Fanny told me she expected him; and she's gone out on purpose to make believe that she's not too anxious to jump into his mouth the moment he opens it."

"Where's she gone, then?" demanded another voice.

Only to her cousin's. She can see him pass the window; and then, when she thinks he has waited long enough, she'll come in and tell him she has been out on business for her 'poor mamma,' and was detained by the lawyer."

"What a lark!" said the other gossip. "Lor, how I should like to see him."

"Well, keep on the look-out, and I'll let you know when he's going; or perhaps they'll walk out here in the evening, and then you can have a good look at him."

"It's him that wrote them letters, isn't

"Of course they will," said Polly; "but still I can't help thinking if Miss Winton had really loved him, she never could have thought about what they cost-at least she couldn't have took them to a jeweller's to find it out."

"Lor, bless you! she's done the same with all the presents he's made her," said Miss Winton's servant.

"There, she's come home," she continued, as a loud ring interrupted their tête-à téte. Now, do you keep alive, and I'll give you notice when he's going, so that you may get a good look at him."

She ran into the house. Mr. Lutworth walked deliberately across the garden, left his card upon the table as he passed through the drawing-room, and without any unnecessary noise, though with no actual attempt at secrecy, let himself out at the front door and went his way. As he traversed the passage, he heard the voices of Miss Winton and her maid up stairs, where the former was divesting herself of her bonnet and shawl, and arranging her hair, previous to descending to the drawing-room. Love would have thrown the bonnet on a chair, and trusted to its counterpart to forgive the displacement of a ringlet or the falling of a bandeau. Perhaps he felt this, and if he did not, the few words that he must have heard in passing were enough to make him feel it.

"Cross was he?" said Miss Winton's voice, with a laugh. "Well, I hope it will do him good. It's just what I wanted."

When she entered the room where she expected to find him, and not seeing him there, she searched the garden; then returning to the house, found his card-her chagrin was very great. She stormed with passion, and vented her fury chiefly upon the poor servant, as if she could have foreseen or prevented Mr. Lutworth's departure. The rage terminated in violent hysterics, which kept the whole house astir for the greater part of the night. The next morning, however, as she hoped that her truant lover would return, she arose as usual, retaining nothing of her illness but an interesting langor; around which, about the time when she expected he would arrive, she arranged the graceful folds of an Indian shawl upon a couch in the drawing-room. The Venetian blinds were let down, that the subdued and greenish light might impart a more delicate pallor to her cheek; and thus, with a vase of flowers on a little table by her side, and a volume of Shakspeare in her hand, she awaited his coming. passed away. She was becoming cross and tired, but the tableau was so very effective that she did not like to spoil it, when at every moment he might come. This I heard

*

*

Hour after hour

SOMEBODY,-do not let the Editor of our "OWN JOURNAL" take the responsibility of the calculation on himself (for he has not the organ of "Number" half largely-enough developed for the task)-has commented as be were his voice in proportion to his weight, or follows:-What a noisy creature would a man as loud as that of a locust! A locust can be heard at the distance of 1-16th of a mile. The golden wren is said to weigh but half an ounce, so that a middling sized man would weigh down not short of 4,000 of them; and it must be strange if a golden wren would not outweigh four of our locusts. Supposing, therefore, that a common man weighs as much as 16,000 of our locusts, and that the note of a locust can be heard 1-16th of a mile, a man of common dimensions, pretty sound in wind and limb, ought to be able to make himself heard at a distance of 1,600 miles; and when he sneezed "his house ought to fall about his ears." Supposing a flea to weigh one grain, which is more than its actual weight, and to jump one and a half yards, a common man tion, could jump 12,800 miles, or about the of 150 pounds, with jumping powers in propor

distance from New York to Cochin China. Aristophanes represents Socrates and his disciples as deeply engaged in calculations of this kind, around a table on which they are waxing a flea's legs to see what weight it will carry in proportion to its size, but he does not announce the result of their experiments. We are, therefore, happy in being able to supply, in some degree, so serious an omission. Surely the man who "calculated" the above, must be an AmeThere is so very much of the " go

rican!

THE ENDING OF THE LATE DROUGHT.

BY H. G. ADAMS.

Он, the thirsty earth!

How she waits and wishes For the kind refreshing shower, Coming down in gushes; How she opes her pores,

How she spreads her bosom, Pleading for the withered grass, And the sealed-up blossom! Long the keen east wind

O'er her daily sweeping, Parched her breast and killed Flying things and creeping; From the arid soil,

Green shoots peeped and faded; And all things around appear'd Withered, worn, and jaded.

Now and then a cloud

In the west appearing,

Gave a short-liv'd hope

That the vane was veering; But soon back it flew

To the eastern quarter, And the cry became more loud"Water! give us water! "Water is our want!

See, we pine and languish ! Sky, hast thou no pity

For our drought and anguish?" Living myriads thus,

Thus all vegetation,

Seemed to raise the voice of prayer, And of lamentation.

There was heard a sound,

Like a far-off answer;
Every blade a flutterer grew,
Every leaf a dancer.
Softer blew the wind

From the southern regions;
And o'er all the azure sky
Spread the cloudy legions.
First it fell like dew,

Scarcely one perceiv'd it; But how joyfully the earth

On her breast received it! Flower and grassy blade,

And all living creatures, Hailed the boon as suited best With their different natures.

Faster now it came,

Faster yet,-down-pouring,

'Mid the grateful trees

Like a torrent roaring;

With a sweep and swirl,
With a gust and eddy;
Sudden it grew calm again,-
Falling soft, and steady.

Oh, the gladsome sound

Sets all nature singing;

On earth's bosom now,

Thick the grass is springing; Man will now have grain, Cattle juicy clover.

Shout, ye valleys, and ye hills,FOR THE DROUGHT IS OVER!

NATURE AND ART.

FIRST follow NATURE, and your judgment frame
By her just standard; which is still the same.
Unerring NATURE, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang'd, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,-
At once the source, and end, and test of Art.
ART from that fund each just supply provides;
Works without show, and without pomp presides.
In some fair body thus th' informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole;
Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains—
Itself unseen, BUT IN TH' EFFECTS REMAINS.

Use of a Cat's Whiskers.

The

WE have no doubt that every one has observed a cat's whiskers; but few perhaps dream that they serve any valuable end. The following passage will prove the contrary:-Every one must have observed what are usually called the whiskers of a cat's upper lip. use of these, in a state of nature, is very important. They are organs of touch. They are attached to a bed of close glands under the skin, and each of these long and stiff hairs is connected with the nerves of the lip. The slightest contact of these whiskers with any surrounding object is thus felt most distinctly by the animal, although the hairs are themselves insensible. They stand out on each side in the lion, as well as in the common cat; so that, from point to point, they are equal to the width of the animal's body. If we imagine, therefore, a lion stealing through a covert of wood, in an imperfect light, we shall at once see the use of these long hairs. They indicate to him, through the nicest feeling, any obstacle which may present itself to the passage of his body; they prevent the rustle of boughs and leaves, which would give a warning to his prey, if he were to attempt to pass through too close a bush; and thus, in conjunction with the soft cushions of his feet, and the fur upon which he treads (the retractile claws never coming in contact with the ground), they enable him to move towards his victim with a stillness greater even than that of the snake, who creeps along the grass, and is not perceived till he is coiled round his prey.

A Perfectly-White Crow.

The "Kelso Mail" says that a white crow was recently shot at Hirsel. There was not a black feather in its whole plumage, it being of a pure and shining white, with a beak of bright yellow.

NOTICE.

OUR FIRST QUARTERLY VOLUME
(WITH INDEX, TITLE PAGE AND PREFACE),
Price 2s. 6d. cloth lettered, post-free 3s.,
IS NOW READY. Also Part V., price 7d.

LONDON: Published for WILLIAM KIDD, by WILLIAM SPOONER, 379, Strand, (to whom ALL Letters, Parcels, and Communications, Addressed to "the Editor,' and BOOKS FOR REVIEW, are to be forwarded); and Procurable, by order, of every Bookseller and Newsvendor in the Kingdom. Agents. Dublin, Edward Milliken; Edinburgh, John Menzies; Glasgow, Murray

and Son.