last five years, according to German | sibility and an endless sleep. When statistics, ninety-two German vessels the rime was on the trees, and the were lost in Danish waters, with up- thermometer below zero, nothing was wards of seven hundred lives. It is more pathetic than to mark the tameestimated that some forty-five thousand ness of wild birds, denoting as it did vessels annually double Cape Skagen, that starvation-point was reached, and of a total of about sixteen million tons, that little bird-hearts were beating and the Germans expect to attract feebly in painful want. about one-half of that traffic to their new ship-canal. If they do so, a moderate impost for dues should yield a fair return on the capital invested, after paying working expenses.

But in Germany the undertaking is regarded less as a financial investment than as a national enterprise. By means of the canal, the coal-owners of Rhenish-Westphalia hope to secure the Baltic markets at present supplied from England and Scotland; and other commercial advantages are expected for other industries of the empire. The strategic importance of the canal, however, is that which gives it its highest value in German eyes; and from one point of view, the new water-way may be regarded as a peaceful device for sweeping Denmark out of the path of Germany as a naval power.

From The Spectator. BIRD-LIFE IN SPRING. Now that spring is gently creeping over the land- is the time to note what visible effect the long, tireless frost of 1895 has had on the feathered host haunting garden, copse, and hedgerow. News comes to us from many parts of the country that songsters are scarce, and the lovers of birds mourn as they think of the blackbirds and throstles who crept into the rabbitburrows to die of cold and starvation, and whose bodies are now being found daily by ferreters in many districts in Surrey. If this mortality has extended over other parts of the country in the same proportion, there is little room for wonder at the unusual silence of the season, the absence of "the charm of birds." Luckily, it is only the first stage of being frozen to death which is painful, the end is only insen

Feeding birds (to those who love them) became a science as the frost continued, and well has the labor been repaid for· - taking as a single instance a garden that the present writer knows of- where the birds have been well cared for, blackbirds and throstles abound in plenty (they begin singing their love-songs at five o'clock in the morning) and the titmice don their best plumage, their splendid condition attracting the attention of all visitors. Outside the windows on the lawn the top of the village Christmas-tree was planted in the snow, and the boughs hung with suet and bones and walnutshells, while a space in the snow was cleared, and this was strewn half-adozen times a day with bread-crumbs and hemp-seed, wheat, chopped-up meat, and such-like delicacies. On a little table close to the window were nuts for the nut-hatches, pretty bluebacked birds with soft chestnut breasts, who became quite tame, flying off with their treasure to their "cache" in the old wall "under the beech-tree;" and on the swept path rape-seed was scattered for the linnets and gold-finches. In fact, all the birds became so tame that when their host went outside to replenish the supplies and whistled a well-known call, they flew across the lawn towards him, and the shrubs close by instantly became alive with guests. Now and then a squirrel came and made sad havoc in the tree and demolished the nuts on the table; but he had notice to quit, and hurried off in a passion, making up his mind to revenge himself on a feast of lily-bulbs and daffodils; and his place was at once filled by the nut-hatches again, a one-legged chaffinch who hopped gaily about apparently not at all inconvenienced by the loss of a limb, hedgesparrows, blackbirds, robins, and

thrushes, with all the different titmice, | is more welcome; and as we listen to who spent most of their time balanc-him-glad to hear his greeting-a ing upside-down on the walnut-shells, flock of fieldfares fly overhead, uttering which were filled with tempting lard, a clatter of good-bye on their way to and suspended by threads to the tree Norway; whither Wolf, the great aniand verandah. In the woods the bodies mal and bird painter, and Gould folof defunct rooks were found hanging lowed them to study their ways and to boughs and lying on the ground, habits. So the ways of the migrants having been starved to death; for the cross, and set one thinking of ships only food within miles was frozen that pass in the night, of the order that turnip-tops, which had to be burrowed daily changeth, and the study of birdfor under the snow, and indigestible life becomes more and more absorbing. food enough it was, hardly keeping body and (may we say ?) soul together. Coming home to roost over the woods, they had to stop and rest from sheer weakness, a thing they would never think of doing in an ordinary way.

Now the scene is changed, and the rookery is the centre of noisy family life, a great deal of chattering and fussing is going on among the nests high up in the fir-trees, and the jackdaws seem to be quarrelling over their domestic arrangements, and are disturbed and upset in their minds by a hawk who insists on crying in the air overhead, and, just to annoy his neighbors, has chosen to build this year in the rookery. A yaffle laughs the hawk to scorn, and flies off to find a convenient tree where he can bore a hole and make his nest while he recalls the first day of the thaw, when he spent hours on the edge of the lawn boring into an ant's nest, and revelling in a feast he had not enjoyed for weeks, and caring little in his greediness whether his crimson head was covered with dirt or not.

In the same letter of Addison's quoted above from "The Spectator," he writes: "The cheerfulness of heart that springs up in us from the survey of Nature's works, is an admirable preparation for gratitude. A grateful reflection on the Supreme Cause produces it, sanctifies it in the soul, and gives it its proper value. Such an habitual disposition of mind consecrates every field and wood, turns an ordinary walk into a morning or evening sacrifice, and will improve those transient gleams of joy which naturally brighten up and refresh the soul on such occasions, with an inviolable and perpetual state of bliss and happiness." A study of nature's works must bring us into touch with the Creator, and the "struggle for the life of others "cannot be more perfectly illustrated, even to Drummond's satisfaction, than in the bird-life of springtime.

The birds are, some of them, courting in pairs over the garden; now the catkins cover the hazel, and the palm is in bloom, and they are ready to give their lives for their nestlings, the beautiful nests being tangible proofs of "Of all seasons there is none that untiring love. Over the woods a soft can vie with the spring for beauty and green is creeping, and a blush of purdelightfulness," writes Addison in May, ple buds is visible at last. The heart 1712. "It bears the same figure among of spring is throbbing with life, everythe seasons of the year, that the morn- where the brown earth is pierced by ing does among the divisions of the green shoots, and the bare boughs are day, or youth among the stages of bursting into life. The heart of spring life;" and the chiff-chaff echoes the is throbbing, it is heard in the garden, sentiment overhead. This little war- in the woodland, on the moor; and bler is the first of the migrants to though the dead gorse and heather and arrive; the first to tell us on his arrival burnt shrubs remind us that the deadly from Algeria, in that monotonous little frost laid his hand upon the earth, the song of his, that spring is here. cold is forgotten in the glorious awakChiff-chaff, chiff-chaff; " yet no song | ening of nature.

From Daheim. ARMORIAL BEARINGS, OLD AND NEW.

who bore them, and transmitted to the heirs. The courtiers now and then complained, but without effect, although the emperor threatened to punish those who adopted a coat-of-arms without imperial sanction. Since the middle of the last century it became the practice of all better-class families to adopt armorial bearings. Even the great poet Goethe chose one and informed his prince [the Duke of SaxeWeimar] of the fact in 1775. The emperor afterward confirmed this coatof-arms when he knighted Goethe.

In Prussia the authorities never hin

THE growth of the cities and their political power, which forced the citizens to defend themselves with sword and shield against similar armed knights, led to the adoption of armorial bearings as early as the fourteenth century, and this blazonry soon became hereditary in the best families. The nobles did not regard this with any displeasure, for long before that time the golden spur and the sword-belt had become the distinguishing marks of nobility. They did not dream of regarding these citizens as their equals, dered the adoption of armorial bearings although they often called in the help as long as they did not collide with of the citizens and paid them knightly those of the nobles. This did, howhonors. About 1400, however, the first ever, happen at times, and King Fredfamilies of the free cities began to be erick William I. endeavored to raise a recognized as noble. Until that time little money for his giant regiments by every coat-of-arms was a free inven- inflicting fines upon those who used tion, transmitted from father to son. illegitimate coats-of-arms. But PrusEach man took care, to the best of his sian law does not prevent any citizen ability, to adopt a blazonry different from adopting such ensigns and transfrom that of every one else. The year mitting them to his heirs. It is to be 1400 brought a revolution in heraldry. hoped that better-class families will The German emperor began to grant again return to this practice instead of armorial bearings to commoners. The the meaningless and insipid monofirst was given to the sons of Folze Eyermenger, a citizen of Mainz, and dates from St. Hieronymus's Day (September 30), 1400. . . . The recipients of such coats-of-arms were described as "comrades in arms" of the knights, species of self-aggrandizement. and therefore their equals. Later, however, a distinction was made between patents of blazonry and patents of nobility. The older patrician families took care to have their blazonry recorded and confirmed.

In North Germany the civic right to adopt armorial bearings developed quite spontaneously. Patrician families in the possession of such coats-of-arms were found at a very early date in the cities of Königsberg, Stettin, Danzig, Elbing, Thorn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, etc. The free cities Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and Frankfort had many families whose nobility was confirmed by imperial patents. There is no doubt that nine-tenths of such blazonries were invented by the first

grams now in use. The right of a citizen to adopt armorial bearings is an historical one, and only the uneducated will deride it; and only malevolent persons will regard its exercise as a

HANDEL'S EXPRESSIVE PATHOS.-When

Handel was blind he composed his "Samson," in which is the most touching of songs, "Total Eclipse." He sent for Beard, then the most popular singer of the day. "Mr. Beard," he said, "I have made a song, which I cannot sing as it ought to be sung, but I can tell you how it ought to be sung." But then he sang it with most expressive pathos. Beard stood listening

in silent wonder and admiration. When it was ended, he said, with tears in his eyes, "But, Mr. Handel, I can never sing it like that!" This anecdote, not recorded in common biographies of Handel, used to be told by the late Edward Fitzgerald, whose letters have recently been published.

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