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And the blackbird melodiously sings
An anthem, reminding of innocent things.

Blue evening comes onward, and scatters
The fires in the western serene;
And the shadows of Lebanon's daughters,
Darkly imaged, outspread on the waters,

Festooned with their branches of green;
The clouds journey past, and below

Are reflected, in brightness, their margins of snow.
Oh sweet is the vision that loses

Present cares in the glow of the past!
As the light of reflection reposes
On youth, with its blossoming roses,
And sunshine too lovely to last:

Sweet dreams! that have sparkled and gone,
Like torrents of blue over ledges of stone!

But why should break forth our repining,
Over what we have loved or have lost?
Whether fortune be shaded or shining,
Our destiny bright or declining,

Our visions accomplished or crost,-
'Tis our's to be calm and resigned,

Faith's star beaming clear on the night of the mind.

When morning awoke on the ocean,

Dim tempests were lowering around;
Yet see, with how stedfast a motion,
As the clouds bend and glow with devotion,
The sun his asylum hath found!

Twilight weeps in deep pleasure, and red

Are the low-lying vale, and the tall mountain head.

Lo! thus, when the clouds of life's sorrow

Have past and have perished, the sky

An added effulgence shall borrow

From the storms that have flown, and the morrow
Gleam bright in eternity's eye;

And the Angel of Righteousness send

His balm to that heart which is true to the end!

As summer advances, the vocal music of the groves is lessened, and in this month may be said to cease altogether-if we except the chirping of the wren and two or three small birds. Some curious particulars of this bird may be seen in T.T. for 1825, p. 196. The beautiful, but evanescent flowers of the con

volvulus are now open; they live but for a day, opening their cups in the morning, and, at sunset, closing them for ever. The enchanter's nightshade; the Yorkshire sanicle; the water horehound or gypsy wort; the great cat's tail, or reed mace; the common nettle; goose-grass; solanum (dulcamara and nigrum); the belladonna; asparagus and some species of rumex; with buck-wheat, and a variety of other plants, may be almost said to bloom, fade, and die, within the present month.

Insects now take the place of the feathered tribe, and, being for the most part hatched in the spring, they are now in full vigour.-See an account of some rare insects appearing this month, as well as the best method of obtaining the lepidoptera, in our last volume, pp. 256-258. The larvæ of the death's-head moth should now be sought for, chiefly among the flowers and leaves of the potatoe.-See our Naturalist's Diary for October.

Towards the end of the month, the splendid fringed · water-lily is seen on the slow-flowing rivers and on ponds.

Many plants grow completely submerged in water, and die in any other situation. Various circumstances, however, besides the bare immersion, are requisite for different species. Thus, some delight in stagnant ponds; others in clear lakes; some in slowly-flowing brooks, and others are only found in the rapid stream of mountain rivulets. Sea-plants, too, are, in general, of a very different description from those of the fresh waters. With some exceptions, plants which grow in water emerge from its surface, to produce their flowers and seeds in air; and sometimes there is a very great dissimilarity between the immerged and emerged leaves of the same plant. We have a striking example of this in the water-crowfoot, a species common in pools. Some of its leaves are submerged, others floating; the latter are broad, trilobed, and subpeltate; the former di

vided into many filaments, almost as fine as hairs. The water-lily, the pondweed, the duckmeat, and a great many other plants, have leaves which float on the surface. Such leaves afford resting places, especially on their under-surfaces, for many aquatic insects, and their larvæ; and for helices and other freshwater shells; and, sometimes, they serve as floating rafts for certain birds which prey on fish and other inhabitants of the water. In birds of the Parra genus, the toes and nails are of a most extraordinary length, the intention of which seems to be, to enable the bird to walk over floating leaves. Labillardiere saw the Chinese Jacana walking on the Nymphæa Nelumbo, and he admired, he says, the lightness with which it walked over the surface of the water, stepping with its long legs from one leaf to another.'-Drummond's Botany, p. 140, second edition.

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Storms of hail, accompanied with thunder and lightning, not unfrequently occur in this month; but they are more common, and more prejudicial, on the continent than in England. The Encyclopædia Britannica, in the article upon France, speaking of the Revolution, says, We cannot here avoid mentioning a physical event which assisted not a little in producing many of the convulsions attending the revolution, a general scarcity of grain, which occurred about that period. On Sunday the 13th of July, 1788, about nine in the morning, without any eclipse, a dreadful darkness suddenly overspread several parts of France. It was the prelude to such a tempest as is unexampled in the temperate climates of Europe. Wind, rain, hail, and thunder, seemed to contend in impetuosity; but the hail was the great instrument of ruin. Instead of the rich prospects of an early autumn, the face of nature, in the space of an hour, presented the dreary aspect of universal winter. The soil was converted into a morass, the standing corn beaten into the quagmire, the vines broken to pieces, the fruit-trees demolished, and unmelted hail lying in

heaps like rocks of solid ice. Even the robust forest trees were unable to withstand the fury of the tempest. The hail was composed of enormous, solid and angular pieces of ice, some of them weighing from eight to ten ounces. The country people, beaten down in the fields on their way to church, amidst this confusion of the elements, concluded that the last day was arrived; and scarcely attempting to extricate them- . selves, lay despairing and half suffocated amidst the water and the mud, expecting the immediate dissolution of all things. The storm was irregular in its devastations. While several rich districts were laid entirely waste, some intermediate portions of country were comparatively little injured. One of sixty square leagues had not a single ear of corn or fruit of any kind left. Of the sixty-six parishes in the district of Pontoise, forty-three were entirely desolated; and of the remaining twenty three, some lost two-thirds, and others half their harvest. The Isle of France, being the district in which Paris is situated, and the Orleannois, appear to have chiefly suffered. The damage there, upon a moderate estimate, amounted to 80,000,000 of livres, or between three and four millions sterling. Such a calamity must, at any period, have been severely felt; but, occurring on the eve of a great political revolution, and amidst a general scarcity throughout Europe, it was peculiarly unfortunate, and gave more embarrassment to the government than, perhaps, any other event whatever. Numbers of families found it necessary to contract their mode of living for a time, and to dismiss their servants, who were thus left destitute of bread. Added to the public discontent and political dissensions, it produced such an effect upon the people in general, that the nation seemed to have changed its character, and instead of that levity by which it had ever been distinguished, a settled gloom now seemed fixed on every countenance.'

Prevention of the fatal Effects of Hail-Storms. The Agricultural Society of Lyons have, by way of experiment, placed four hundred paragrèles on the most elevated parts of Mount d'Or, in a place of about two leagues in extent. As all the stormy clouds which shower down hail on the fertile plains that lie at the foot of that mountain pass over its summit, and at no great height above it, it may reasonably be expected that, by these paragrèles, they will be divested of their electricity, and that the valuable vineyards in the plain will be effectually preserved. The yearly average of damage done by hail, at the foot of Mount d'Or, is calculated at from eight to ten thousand francs. The expense of erecting the four hundred paragrèles did not exceed fifteen or sixteen hundred francs; and it is supposed that it will not be necessary to renew them for five years.-Some doubt, however, has lately been expressed by scientific men, as to the efficacy of these paragrèles.

Wonderful Effect of Lightning.

The following account is from Professor Silliman's American Journal:-On the evening of June 3, 1826, during a heavy shower of rain, a clap of thunder burst, with a tremendous explosion, over a house in Weathersfield, Connecticut. The lightning ran down the chimney to the ceiling of the front room, where it came through, leaving a hole nearly an inch in diameter-tore off the paper and plaster from the wall-descended on a row of nails in the lathes to a picture- melted all the gilding-burned and tore one side of the frame-and, again rending its way, ran upon the nails to the fire-place, and separated the breast-work from the chimney; and from thence taking a horizontal direction, attracted by an umbrella in the corner of the cupboard, a small line was to be seen, from a nail to a bolt, in an opposite closet. From the umbrella it went off at an angle, and came out over the fire-place in a lower room, in nine holes, the largest the size of a common gimblet, scorching and slightly tearing the paper. It entered at the corner of a picture, melted the gilding, blackened the frame, and, passing off at another corner, separated again into several lines, intersecting each other,

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