Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

genial ministry, baptize the offspring of earth with their softest and holiest showers. "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof."

8. Surely we cannot stand still in such a scene, and, when every thing else is springing, let it be winter in our souls. Let us rather open our hearts to the renovating influences of heaven, and sympathize with universal nature. If our love to God has been chilled by any of the wintry aspects of the world, it is time that it should be resuscitated, and that it should spring up in ardent adoration to the Source of light and life.

9. It is time that our gratitude should be waked from its sleep, and our devotion aroused, and that all our pious affections, shaking off their torpor, should come out into the beams of God's presence, and receive new powers from their invigorating warmth. It is time, too, that our social charities, if any "killing frost" has visited them, should be cured of their numbness and apathy', and go forth among the children and brethren of the great family, and feel, as they rise and move, that the blessing of the Almighty Father is upon their springing.

1 DÖR'MI-TO-RIES. Sleeping places. 4 SYM'PA-THĪZE. Feel as another feels; 2 MYR'I-AD. An immense number. have a common feeling.

3 RE-SUS'CI-TAT-ED. Restored to life 5 AP'A-THY. Want of feeling; insen. from seeming death; revived. sibility; indifference.

[blocks in formation]

1. We love birds. When the first soft days of spring come in all their gentle sweetness, and woo us with their warmth, and soothe us with their smile, then come the birds. With us they, too, rejoice that winter's reign

1

(and snow) is ended. No one of the seasons that come to "rule the varied year," abdicates his throne more to his subjects' joy than Winter. While he rules, we lose all respect for the mercury' in our thermometer3. When we remember how high it stood in our estimation only a few short months ago, we did not think that it could get so low. We resolve to have nothing more to do with it; for "there is a point beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue," and we conceive that point to be thirty-two degrees above zero at the very least.

4

2. How pleasant are the early hours of a day in spring! The air is laden with the perfect perfume of a thousand flowers, and leaves, and buds. And then, besides the pleasure of seeing jocund' day go through that difficult gymnastic feat, described by Shakspeare, of standing "tiptoe on the misty mountain tops," we have a glorious morning concert, to which we have a season ticket; for

"Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade

Of new-sprung leaves their modulations mix
Mellifluous.”

3. Such music! It seems the pure outpouring of the greatest gratitude to Him who made the morn so beautiful, so full of joy and light. It is the expression of most perfect praise, in ecstasy of song. Yes, indeed, we love birds!

4. There is a deal of pleasure as well as profit to be derived from studying the habits and the character of birds. Nor is the study burdensome. Of all the lower orders of creation, as they frequent most freely the haunts and homes of men, so they approach us nearest in intelligence. They have their labors and amusements, their conjugal relations, and, like us, they build with taste and skill their houses; they have society, moreover, and the opera. In very many things they are our equals, in some, our superiors; and what in other

animals at best is only instinct, in birds is almost

reason.

8

5. Among the first returning tourists' from the south, In spring, are these pleasant little people, the bluebird, martin, and wren. They have particular confidence in man. Nor is their confidence misplaced; for every body hails with joy these harbingers of spring. Their company is peculiarly agreeable, and they seem to know it; for every year they come again to occupy the boxes, or perchance old hats, which were put up for them, and in them they build their nests, and there they live rent free; yet not exactly so, for they pay us with their notes.

6. Sometimes these little people have a deal of difficulty among themselves about these habitations. The martins come, and find the bluebirds have taken all these places, and there is a disturbance directly. After some considerable scolding, and twitting on facts, the martins take possession of a certain portion of the pigeon-cote, and keep it too,for not a pigeon dare go near them, while the smaller wrens content themselves with some spare corner of the portico, where they forthwith proceed to build their houses, with all the architectural skill derived from their great namesake, the builder of St. Paul's. There is a spice of waggish mischief about the wren somewhat amusing.

*

7. Often when the bluebird has left his house, and gone to market or down town, the wren peeps in, and, finding no one there, proceeds to amuse himself by pulling out the straws and feathers in the nest; but should perchance the bluebird come in sight, the wren remembers that there is something very interesting going on around the corner of the barn, that demands his immediate attention.

8. These birds-the bluebird, martin, and the wren, together with the swallows (barn and chimney), and "honest robin," who, as quaint old Walton has it, "loves

The architect of St. Paul's, in London, was Sir Christopher Wren.

mankind, both alive and dead” are half domesticated". They love to live near man. The bluebird and the robin are the only two among them who appear to have paid much attention to the cultivation of their vocal powers. They salute the morning with sweet songs. The wren and other small birds are in the garden, breakfasting on worms, or, as we sometimes express it, "getting their grub.”

9. The martin, meanwhile, listens to the concert, as a critic, or as one of the audience; for he sits up in his pri vate box, now and then uttering an approving note, as if of applause. Indeed, the martin is not very musical. Sometimes, in the bosom of his family, when he feels very social, he takes up his pipe, and then essays a song. But he never gets beyond the first few notes of "Hi Betty Martin," and then goes off on tiptoe.

1 AB'DI-CĀTE. Relinquish as an office or station; give up; surrender.

2 MER'CU-RY. A metal which is fluid
at common temperatures; quick-
silver.

8 THER-MOM'E-TER. An instrument
for measuring degrees of heat.
4 ZE'RŌ. The figure naught; here, the
point at which the numbering of
the degrees on a thermometer com-

mences.

thermometer, is thirty-two degrees below the freezing point of water. 5 JŎc'UND. Merry; gay; joyous. 6 ŎP'E-RA. A musical drama.

7 TOUR'IST. One who makes a tour or journey.

8 HÄR BIN GER. A forerunner; a herald.

9 DO-MES'TI-CAT-ED. Tamed; living under the care of man.

Zero, in the common 10 AU' DI-ENCE. Assembly of hearers.

[blocks in formation]

1. But here we have a jolly little fellow, who makes up in sociability what he lacks in song. The small housesparrow or, as he is generally known, the "chippin' bird,” comes to our very doors. He hops along the piazza, gathering "crumbs of comfort" and of bread, and knows that not a soul within the house, not even that "unfeeling schoolboy," would harm a feather of his tail. He keeps a

careful eye, however, on the cat; for he is perfectly aware that she would consider him only a swallow, and he does not like to lose his identity.

2. There is in history a single instance where this bird seems to have forgotten his character, and to have been a destroyer, rather than, as he is called by boys, a "sparer.” Every juvenile' of five years, who is at all read in the literature of his age, knows the tragic story of the death and burial of cock robin. That interesting individual was found one morning lying on the ground, with a murderous weapon through his heart. The horror-stricken birds assembled. A coroner's inquest was holden. The first inquiry was, of course, "Who killed cock robin?" There was a momentary silence; and then the sparrow, the last one in the crowd, perhaps, to be suspected, confessed the deed. He then proceeds to state how it was done, and owns he "did it with his bow and arrow."

3. "Caw! caw! caw!" The watchword and the signal of alarm or caution among crows; or else it is the "dreadful note of preparation" summoning the lawless legions from the depths of the pine woods, from yonder hill, from far-off forests, to come and help pull up a field of corn, just beginning to put forth its tender blades. “All these and more come flocking," for there's no one around; the scarecrow was blown down last night; the gun is lent; the boys have gone to school; the farmer tumbled off the hay-mow yesterday and broke his leg: and so the crows proceed with the destruction,

"unmoved

With dread of death, to flight, or foul retreat."

3

4. The crow and blackbird both are arrant3 rogues. The last, indeed, renders somewhat of service in the early part of spring; for, following the furrows of the field, devouring countless worms and grubs, which would be most

« AnteriorContinuar »