his tenth year, when a fife which broke out in the house of his father, reduced it to ashes, and consumed the unfortunate carpenter in the ruins. Totally ruined by this frightful event, the whole family were left destitute, and forced to implore the charity of strangers, in order to supply the urgent necessities of each succeeding day.

At length, tired of his vain attempts to support his indigent parent by the extorted kindness of others, and grieved at seeing her and his sisters pining in want before his eyes, necessity and tenderness conspired to urge him to exertion and ingenuity. He made with laths, and with some little difficulty, a cage of considerable dimensions, and furnished it with every requisite for the reception of birds; and when spring returned, he proceeded to the woods in the vicinity of Tempio, and set himself industriously to secure their nests of young. As he was skilful at the task, and of great activity, it was not long before he became tolerably successful: he climbed from tree to tree, and seldom returned without his cage being well stored with chaffinches, linnets, blackbirds, wrens, ring doves, and pigeons. Every week, Francesco and his sisters carried their little favorites to the market of Sussari, and generally disposed of those which were most attractive and beautiful.

The object of their desires was to be able to support their helpless parent; but still, all the assistance they were able to procure for her was far from being adequate to supply her numerous wants. In this dilemma, Francesco conceived a new and original method of increasing his gains; necessity is the mother of invention, and he meditated no less a project than to train a young Angora cat to live harmlessly in the midst of his favorite songsters. Such is the force of habit, such the power of education, that, by slow degrees, he taught the mortal enemy of his winged pets to live, to drink, to eat, and to sleep in the midst of his little charges, without once attempting to devour or injure them. The cat, which he called Bianca, suffered the little birds to play all manner of tricks with her; and never did she extend her talons, or offer to hurt her companions.

He went even farther; for, not content with teaching them merely to live in peace and happiness together, he instructed the cat and the little birds to play a kind of game, in which each had to learn its own part; and after some little trouble in training, each performed with readiness the particular duty assigned to it. Puss was instructed to curl herself into a circle, with her head between her paws, and appear buried in sleep; the cage was then opened, and the little tricksy birds rushed out upon her, and endeavored to awaken her by repeated strokes of their beaks; then dividing into two parties, they attacked her head and her whiskers, without the gentle animal once appearing to take the least notice of their gambols. At other times she would seat herself in the middle of the cage, and begin to smooth her fur, and purr with great gentleness and satisfaction; the birds would sometimes even settle on her back, or sit like a crown upon her head, chirruping and singing as if in all the security of a shady wood.

The sight of a sleek and beautiful cat seated calmly in the midst of a cage of birds was so new and unexpected, that, when Francesco produced them at the fair of Sussari, he was surrounded instantly by a crowd of admiring spectators. Their astonishment scarcely knew any bound when they heard him call each feathered favorite by its name, and saw it fly towards him with alacrity, till all were perched contentedly on his head, his arms, and his fingers.

Delighted with his ingenuity, the spectators rewarded him liberally; and Francesco returned in the evening, with his little heart swelling with joy, to lay before his mother a sum of money which would suffice to support her for many months.

This ingenious boy next trained some young partridges, one of which became exceedingly attached to him. This partridge, which he called Rosoletta, on one occasion brought back to him a beautiful goldfinch, that had escaped from its cage, and was lost in an adjoining garden. Francesco was in despair at the loss, because it was a good performer, and he had promised it to the daughter of a lady from whom he had

received much kindness. On the sixth morning after the goldfinch had escaped, Rosoletta, the tame and intelligent partridge, was seen chasing the truant bird before her, along the top of the linden trees towards home. Rosoletta led the way by little and little, before him, and at length, getting him home, seated him, in apparent disgrace, in a corner of the aviary, whilst she flew from side to side in triumph for her success.

Francesco was now happy and contented, since by his own industry and exertions he was enabled to support his mother and sisters. Unfortunately, however, in the midst of all his happiness, he was suddenly torn from them by a very grievous accident. He was one evening engaged in gathering a species of mushroom very common in the southern countries of Europe; but not having sufficient discrimination to separate those which are nutritious from those which are poisonous, he ate of them to excess, and died in a few days, together with his youngest sister, in spite of every remedy which skill could apply. During the three days of Francesco's illness, his birds flew incessantly round and round his bed; some lying sadly upon his pillow, others flitting backwards and forwards above his head, a few uttering brief but plaintive cries, and all taking scarcely any nourishment.

The death of Francesco showed in a remarkable manner what affections may be excited in animals by a course of gentle treatment. Francesco's birds appeared to be sensible of the loss of a benefactor; but none of his feathered favorites manifested on his decease such real and disconsolate grief as Rosoletta. When poor Francesco was placed in his coffin, she flew round and round it, and at last perched upon the lid. In vain they several times removed her; she still returned, and even persisted in accompanying the funeral procession to the place of graves. During his interment she sat upon an adjoining cypress, to watch where they laid the remains of her friend; and when the crowd had departed, she forsook the spot no more, except to return to the cottage of his mother for her accustomed food. While she lived, she came daily to perch

1

and to sleep upon the turret of an adjoining chapel, which looked upon his grave; and here she lived, and here she died, about four months after the death of her beloved master.

XLVL-MOONLIGHT IN THE TROPICS.

GOSSE.

[From A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, a work by Philip Henry Gosse, a distinguished living naturalist of England.]

THERE is something exceedingly romantic in the nights of the tropics. It is pleasant to sit on the landing place at the top of the flight of steps in front of Bluefields House, after night has spread her "purple wings" over the sky, or even to lie at full length on the smooth stones; it is a hard bed, but not a cold one, for the thick flags, exposed to the burning sun through the day, become thoroughly heated, and retain a considerable degree of warmth till morning nearly comes again. The warmth of the stones is particularly pleasant, as the cool night breezes play over the face.

The scene is favorable for meditation; the moon, "walking in brightness," gradually climbing up to the very centre of the deep-blue sky, sheds on the grassy sward, the beasts lying down here and there, the fit trees, the surrounding forest, and the glistening sea spread out in front, a soft but brilliant radiance unknown to the duller regions of the north. The bab bling of the little rivulet, winning its seaward way over the rocks and pebbles, comes like distant music upon the ear, which the bass is supplied by the roll of the surf falling on the sea beach at measured intervals —a low, hollow roar, protracted until it dies away along the sinuous shore, the memorial of a fierce but transitory sea breeze.

of

But there are sweeter sounds than these; the mocking bird takes his seat on the highest twig of the orange tree at my

* The name of a country house in the Island of Jamaica.

feet, and pours forth his rich and solemn gushes of melody, with an earnestness as if his soul were in his song. A rival from a neighboring tree commences a similar strain; and now the two birds exert all the powers, each striving his utmost to outsing the other, until the silence of the lonely night ringswith bursts, and swells, and tender cadences of melodious song.X Here and there, over the pasture, the intermittent green spark of the firefly flits along, and at the edges of the bounding woods scores of twinkling lights are seen, appearing and disappearing in the most puzzling manner. Three or four bats are silently winging along through the air, now passing over the face of the vertical moon like tiny black specks now darting through the narrow arch beneath the steps, and now flitting so close overhead that one is tempted to essay their capture with an insect net. The light of the moon, however, though clearly revealing their course, is not powerful or precise enough for this, and the little nimble leather-wings pursue their giddy play in security.

६

XLVII.-THE CONJUGATING DUTCHMAN.

Two English gentlemen once stepped into a coffee house in Paris, where they observed a tall, odd-looking man, who appeared not to be a native, sitting at one of the tables, and looking around with the most stone-like gravity of countenance upon every object. Soon after the two Englishmen entered, one of them told the other that a celebrated dwarf had arrived in Paris. At this the grave-looking personage above mentioned opened his mouth and spake. "I arrive," said he, "thou arrivest, he arrives, we arrive, you arrive, they arrive."

The Englishman whose remark seemed to have suggested this mysterious speech stepped up to the stranger and asked, "Did you speak to me, sir?" "I speak," replied the stranger, "thou speakest, he speaks, we speak, you speak, they speak.”