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become extinct. May it not be asked, what means more effectual could human wisdom have devised under similar circumstances'?'

The melody of birds now gradually swells upon the ear. The throstle, second only to the nightingale in song, charms us with the sweetness and variety of its lays. The linnet and the goldfinch join the general concert in this month, and the golden-crowned wren begins its song. The lark, also, must not be forgotten.

The SKYLARK.

[By Mrs. Josiah Conder.]

With flutt'ring start, in silence, from her nest
The skylark breaks;—then steadier, upward soars,
And with melodious trill her prelude pours

To Earth, in hues of full-flushed Summer drest:
Now, poised on moveless wing, she seems to rest.
Careless what bird, beneath the airy height,
May cross her path with horizontal flight,

The measured lay she breathes :-then, like a guest
Singing to other spheres, is lost in light.

Till, fondly lured, she turns her faithful breast

Downward, through fields of blue. The warbled strain
Near and more near she swells;-then, hushed again,
Falls like a shadow from the sunny dome,

And chaunts her three wild notes to welcome home.
Literary Souvenir.

Each succeeding week pours forth fresh beauties. from the lap of Flora, and furnishes the botanist with new sources of delight. Golden tufts of crocuses, expanding their corollas to receive the genial warmth of the sun, interspersed with pink and blue hepaticas, and the garden daisy, with its little tufts of crimson velvet, united with the blossoms of last month, greatly ornament our flower borders. The alpine wall-cress is still in bloom; the mezereon puts forth its leaves; and the primrose peeps from the retreating snows of winter.

1 See a curious volume, entitled 'The Honey-Bee; its Natural History, Physiology, and Management,' 1827.

Daffodils, yellow auriculas, coltsfoot, with its brilliant golden and sometimes pink or silvery stars, and hounds-tongue, are in blossom about the middle of the month. The American cowslip, with its beautiful rose-coloured blossoms, growing in thick branches in the form of a cone, flowers in March. The charming violet, whose attractions have been the theme of many a poetic effusion, makes her appearance this month, but not in full perfection, for the chill winds of March are not very congenial to the expansion of so delicate a blossom.

To an EARLY VIOLET.

[By Richard Howitt.]

Herald of brighter hours! why from thy rest
Thus early dost thou start? Chill is the gale,
To form, like thine, so beautiful and frail.
The rook, with careful cries that seeks its nest,
Flings its broad shadow on thy dewy breast.

For sunny is the day, though like the smile
Dear woman wears, when she would fain beguile
The coldness of her fortune. Upward towers

The lark, companion of the fields with thee,
And sings unto the clouds his songs of glee!
Perchance his skyward dreams are of the flow'rs
Which gather round him in June's radiant hours;

When thou, fair comer of the spring, hast shed
Thy perfumed breath abroad, and drooped upon thy bed.

The VIOLET.

[From Servian Popular Poetry, by Mr. Bowring.]

How captivating is to me,

Sweet flow'r! thine own young modesty!
Though I did pluck thee from thy stem,
There's none would wear thy purple gem.
I thought, perchance, that Ali Bey-
But he is proud and lofty-nay,

He would not prize thee-would not wear
A flow'r so feeble, though so fair;

His turban for its decorations

Had full-blown roses and carnations.

af

We conclude our tributes to the violet with some pleasing reflections, extracted from TalSpirit and Manners of the Age,' (vol. i, p. 265) one of the many

tasteful and talented hebdomadals' which the intelligence of modern times has produced: its superior claims to the notice of the parent, on account of its strictly moral and religious principles, must ever secure it a place in the families of those who think that the Book of Nature is only to be studied to advantage, by the aid of parallel passages in the Book OF REVELATION.

The HANDFUL of VIOLETS.

And shall the muse to thee her praise deny,
Thou best, tho' most diminutive of flowers?
For where can Nature, thro' her wide domains,
Boast other odours half so sweet as thine?
Tho' the striped tulip, and the blushing rose,
The polyanthus broad, with golden eye,
The full carnation, and the lily ́tall,
Display their beauties in the gay parterre,
In costly gardens, where th' unlicensed feet
Of rustics tread not-yet that lavish hand,
Which scatters violets under ev'ry thorn,
Forbids that sweets like these should be confined
Within the limits of the rich man's wall.

Welcome visitants! ye tell me that the wintry blasts are about to give place to the milder gales, and that the reviving spring is again re-visiting our world. My heart exults at the glad tidings. Again, I shall roam through the flowery vale, and climb the high mountain. I shall behold the happy groups of village children cull the sweet cowslips from the verdant mead. Motionless by the copse I shall pause again, whilst the nightingale pours forth her enchanting melody. The fresh leaves will shoot forth on the trees with new lustre; the fields and the hedge-rows will be again lovely; and the fine blossoms, reflecting all the vivid tints of the bow of heaven, will once more adorn our orchards and our gardens.

Eloquent instructors! ye remind me of Him, who, though enthroned on the riches of the universe, yet bids the seasons revolve in grateful succession. Ye tell me of his infinite faithfulness. He has said, that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease,'-and ye are come to say, 'Behold his word is accomplished!'

And do ye not speak of his goodness? Ye do. He has not only

The Mirror and the Table-Book are particularly worthy of notice.

made you beautiful, but also fragrant. The little child, and he who is hoary with age,-the vagrant boy who wanders destitute of a home, and the monarch in his palace; every age and every rank is delighted with your sweetness.

And have ye nothing to say of the divine wisdom? This shines in glorious luminaries which adorn the firmament,-in the worlds which revolve around the orb of day; in the wings of the insects which exult in his beams, and in every flower that adorns the garden or the field. There is not one of them, however insignificant and unnoticed by the eye of man,

But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivalled pencil.

Sweet violets! ye awaken the reflecting mind to thought,-ye bid me muse on the varied works of the Almighty hand. How manifold are his works-in wisdom he has made them all. The earth, yea, all worlds are full of his boundless riches!

But ye are not all the violets which his hand has formed. O no. They are innumerable. Countless multitudes of human beings, no less than myself, shall be regaled with their delicious fragrance. Who can tell where the divine benignity ends? It has no termination; it is not only immense, but infinite.

Fragrant monitors! I will not forget where ye grow. It was on yonder mossy bank, warm with the earliest beams of the opening day. Ye shone in secret,-ye were beautiful, but your charms were concealed. But ye threw abroad your delicious sweets; the little ones sought you out, they brought you to be admired in the public gaze. So, the Christian, in secret, walks humbly with his God, so, though arrayed in the beautiful garments of the skies, He shines contented without being seen.' And thus, perpetually, he pours forth to the heavens the incense of his praise.

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But the place where ye grew, knows you not. It will never know you any more. In a little while you will wither and die, and crumble into dust. So, man also, the monarch of the creation, languishes and expires, and soon mingles with the dust, out of which he was formed. But he has a spirit which will survive the ruins of the grave, and will live for ever. And even the mortal body shall put on immortality. The saying that is written shall, indeed, be brought to pass, Death is swallowed up in victory! He, who bowed his blessed head on the cross, and died for guilty man, he has said, 'I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.'

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As the creation wakes from its wintry sleep, and as spring arrays the world in new beauty, I will hail the change;-I will gaze on the smiling landscape, and say, there is a world of joy where there is no winter; there my father is-that delicious region

is my home—I am journeying thither;-I will exclaim with the poet,

Sweet season! appealing

To fancy and feeling;

Be thy advent the emblem of all I would crave:

Of light more than vernal,
That day-spring eternal,

Which shall dawn on the dark wintry night of the grave?

H. H. H.

If the weather be mild, the rich hyacinth, the noble descendant of the modest harebell, the sweet narcissus, delicately pale, and some of the early tulips, are now in bloom. The peach and the nectarine begin to show their elegant blossoms.

In this month, black ants are observed; the blackbird and the turkey lay; and house-pigeons sit. The greenfinch sings; the bat is seen flitting about; and the viper uncoils itself from its winter sleep. The wheatear, or English ortolan, again pays its annual visit, leaving England in September. Those birds which have passed the winter in England now take their departure for more northerly regions; as the fieldfare, the red-wing, and the woodcock.

About half past five o'clock in the morning of March, 1820, a very extraordinary migration of small birds was witnessed at Little Oakley, in Essex. The attention of the observer was arrested by an uncommon chattering of birds, and, looking up, he beheld an incredible number of small birds flying a-breast, in a line extending as far as the eye could distinguish them, and three or four yards deep. Their direction was towards the S.E., the wind favouring them; their height only a few yards from the ground. The flock was supposed to consist principally of chaffinches, linnets, twites, and bramblings. None of the two latter species were seen in the neighbourhood after that time; and there is on those shores, in the winter season, an immense quantity of linnets, more than can be bred in the neighbourhood.-Linn, Trans. vol. xv, part I, p. 28.

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