from every eye to accomplish the grand law of Nature. The convolvulus, the mosses, the water maiden-hair, suspend draperies of verdure before her nest, in order to present to her only pleasing images; the cress and the lentil supply her with a delicate food; the soft murmuring of the water soothes her ear; beautiful insects present themselves to her eye; and the Naiads of the stream, the more completely to conceal this youthful mother, plant around her their distaffs of reeds, covered with empurpled wool.

'Among these travellers from the north, there are some who habituate themselves to our manners, and refuse to return to their native land: some, like the companions of Ulysses, are captivated by the delicious sweets of certain fruits; others, like the deserters from the vessel of the British circumnavigator, are seduced by enchantresses who detain them in their islands. Most of them, however, leave us after a residence of some months: they are attached to the winds and the storms which tarnish the polish of the waves, and deliver to them that prey which would escape them in transparent waters; they love none but unknown retreats, and make the circuit of the globe by a round of solitudes.

'It is not always in troops that these birds visit our habitations. Sometimes two beauteous strangers, white as snow, arrive with the frosts; they descend in the midst of a heath, on an open place, where it is impossible to approach them without being perceived; after resting a few hours, they again soar above the clouds. You hasten to the spot from which they departed, and find nothing but a few feathers, the only marks of their passage, already dispersed by the wind. Happy the men, who, like the swan, have quitted the earth, without leaving behind them any other relics, or any other memorials than a few feathers from their wings!

Concordances with the scenes of Nature, or reasons of utility to man, determine the different migra

tions of animals. The birds that appear in the months of storms have dismal voices and savage manners, like the season which brings them; they come not to be heard, but to listen: there is something in the dull roaring of the woods that charms their ears. The trees, which mournfully wave their leafless summits, bear only black legions, which have associated for the winter; they have their sentinels and their advanced guards: frequently a crow, who has seen a hundred winters, the ancient Sybil of the deserts, who has survived several generations, remains singly perched on an oak which has grown old with her; there, while all her sisters maintain a profound silencé, motionless, and, as it were, full of thought, she delivers prophetic monosyllables, from time to time, to the winds. It is very remarkable, that the teal, the duck, the goose, the woodcock, the plover, the lapwing, which serve us for food, all arrive when the earth is bare; while, on the contrary, the foreign birds by which we are visited in the season of fruits, administer only to our pleasures; they are musicians sent to heighten the delights of our banquets. We must, however, except a few, such as the quail and the wood-pigeon, the season for taking which does not commence till after the harvest, and which fatten on our corn, that they may afterwards supply our tables. Thus, the birds of winter are the manna of the rude northern blasts, as the nightingales are the gift of the zephyrs: let the wind blow from whatever point of the horizon it will, it is sure to bring us a present from Providence.'

During the months of October, November, and December, at the fall of the leaf, insects become less numerous, but many of the Hemiptera may be found in woods, by beating the ferns and underwood, also many very beautiful Tinee and Tortrices; and aquatic insects may be taken in ponds, in great numbers. Roots of grass, decayed trees, &c. may again be re

sorted to.-Samouelle's Introduction to British Entomology, p. 316.

Fall of the Leaf.

The leaves of trees and shrubs, having lasted the time allotted them by nature, shrink and drop off, producing annually the phenomenon called the fall of the leaf.' With respect to the cause of this, it is sufficient at present to say, that each leaf falls because it is weakened or dead, and also because it is separated by an action in the living branch from which it grew. The bare death of a leaf is not sufficient to cause its fall; for when both leaf and plant are killed by lightning, by a cutting wind, or by any other sudden cause, the dead leaf will adhere tenaciously to the dead branch. There are some plants which it is very difficult to preserve by drying in the usual manner, because their leaves all separate; and for this reason, they become dead sooner than the parts from which they grow, and these parts retain vital action enough to throw them off. The remedy, however, is simple; imitate the stroke of lightning, or whatever will at once kill the whole plant: all will then die together, and consequently the dead branch will have no power to cast off the dead leaf. The remedy is to dip the specimen in boiling water before committing it to paper. The heaths, especially, are said to require this treatment, as do also the succulent plants, though on a somewhat different account; for as the latter can live almost independent of roots, they continue to vegetate during the usual process of drying, and it is not uncommon to find them, when pressed in books, running through the whole process of flowering, and even producing seeds. Brown mentions that the leaves of the smooth acacia (which are not succulent indeed, but sensible like those of the sensitive plant) will spread and contract, after they have been in paper for a month or six weeks.

The change of temperature from hot to cold seems to be one principal circumstance connected with the death and fall of the leaf; and hence it is, that European trees grown in the southern hemisphere, cast their leaves at the approach of winter there, which is about the same period of the year that they put them forth in their own climate.

Some birds cast their feathers all at once, and in consequence, being unable to fly, are caught in great numbers. These may be compared to most trees in our regions, which part with their leaves in a few weeks, and remain bare till the following spring. But in most birds the casting and renewing of their feathers is a gradual process; and when the change is going on, no inconvenience from want of clothing is felt by the animal; as although it is constantly losing some of its old plumage, an equal quantity of new is coming forward to supply its place.

Now, in trees in hot countries the leaves are changed, though not so often as with us, but there is no general moulting. The trees are constantly losing leaves, but as constantly repairing the loss; so that they are always clothed, and present no change that can be denominated the 'fall of the leaf.

With respect to the colour of leaves, it is almost unnecessary to say that in most plants it is green; but in different species the green varies much in intensity. Some plants have a foliage coloured very differently from green, and many, whose leaves are of this colour on the upper surface, are of a different hue on the under. Scarcely any plant has a more beautiful, satiny, deep green above than the shiningleaved begonia, but beneath it is universally reddish, and traversed in every direction by reticulated darkred veins. Some species have naturally several colours in the same leaf, and by art and culture this circumstance is rendered frequent, as may be observed in the many variegated plants of shrubberies and gardens. This variegation, which may be considered

as a sort of disease, is much more common in petals than in common leaves, and hence the endless varieties of the tulip, hyacinth, &c. Red is a very common colour in the leaves of many plants, when they begin to decay, and in some long before they fall; as in the common dog-wood, the Virginian creeper, many species of the rose, &c.

The changes of colour in the leaves of plants, especially of trees, which take place in autumn, are familiar to every one, but are more particularly interesting to the eye of the painter, and the contemplation of the moralist. The one finds in them some of the best subjects for the warmth and beauty of his pencil; the other contrasts these changing leaves with the races of men, which having flourished through the spring and summer of life, fall at last, in the autumn of their existence, into decay, and are swept by the wintry breath of age into the tomb, and are no more found. Trees have thus been ever considered as emblems of human life, and, in all ages, affecting views and comparisons have been drawn of their progress from debility and infancy to youth, strength, maturity, and inevitable final decay. The heathen and the atheist have found in them emblems of eternal oblivion, to which they suppose man with all his high-born hopes is to be consigned. As the leaves of the tree fall and perish for ever, so they represent that, when man returns to his mother earth, it is only to mingle with the unthinking material elements; that never more shall he be conscious of existence; and that he, his virtues, and his crimes, sink into irrevocable annihilation. Yet as no particle of matter is ever lost, though it may undergo a thousand changes of the most extraordinary kind, so we may rest satisfied that mind is equally indestructible; and though it be impossible for us to trace its flight or modifications after death, there is no reason for a moment to question its future existence, and its immortality. Every thing revealed and ra