lightest pastry for a birthday feast, can guide the pencil with an artist's talent; children of ten years of age, who promise to play very well with a moderate amount of home instruction, have kept the housekeeping accounts during mamma's illness, without any detriment to their childish merriment when mamma was happily about again; and many a sweet infant voice and beaming infant countenance can heart and memory recal connected with employments and enjoyments thus wisely and pleasantly united.— Home Truths for Home Peace.

THE SKY.

66

It is a strange thing how little, in general, people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him, and teaching him, than in any other of her works; and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his presence,-he ceases to feel them if he be always with them. But the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is not too bright nor good for human nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful,-never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity; its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations. We look upon all by which it speaks to us, more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of the Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew that we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? one says it has been wet, and another it has been windy, and another it has been warm.

Who among

the whole clattering crowd can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that gilded the horizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves? All has passed unregretted or unseen; or, if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is extraordinary. And yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not always so eloquent in the earthquake, nor in the fire, as in "the still, small voice." They are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature which can only be addressed through lamp-black and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual,that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood, things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting and never repeated, which are to be

found always yet each found but once. It is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given.-John Ruskin.

THE EMIGRANT SHIP.

THE white sails swelled in the joyous wind,
And away went the queenly ship,
'Mid cheer, and blessing, and fond farewell
From every heart and lip.

The flush on the sunset waters

Was of deepest crimson dye;
And the tall masts stood up gallantly
Against the evening sky.

There were brave and buoyant spirits there,
High hope, and courage true;

Oh! a costly freight that proud ship bore
As she swept o'er the billows blue.

Oh! blessings go with that noble bark,
And guard her on her way,
Beneath the sacred stars of night,
And the purple skies of day.

LUCINDA ELLIOTT.

I LOVE TO FOLLOW THE HONEY-BEE.* I LOVE to follow the honey-bee

In lonely summer bowers,

And watch the wings, so light and free,
As they glance among the flowers.
A reveller bold, without a care,
It trolls its merry lay,
And drinks a vintage bright and rare,
The livelong summer day.

When first I followed the honey-bee,
A reveller bold was I;

A step more light, a heart more free,
Were not beneath the sky.

The wine of hope I gaily quaffed

In wild, unthinking glee ;

I sung, I played, I danced, I laughed,—— Oh, life was bright to me!

Far away in heathery dells,

By music-haunted streams, Whose banks of fern and wild bluebells Bloom freshly in my dreams : These were my old familiar haunts, The dearest yet to me, And ever, as then, my spirit pants To follow the honey-bee!

J. P. DOUGLAS.

* These words are the copyright of Robert Cocks & Co.

Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES COOK, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street.

BELLS!

The bells and chimes of Motherland,

Of England green and old,

That out from grey and ivied towers
A thousand years have tolled!

ENGLAND was in olden times called the "Ringing Island," because of the abundance of its bells, and the merry peals which were rang from them; and to this day, England can exhibit better bell-ringing than any country in the world. Some districts are quite famous for their ringers, and for their great matches of art and "science" in bell-ringing. Village challenges village, and the ringers meet to try their skill. An incredible number of changes is rung in a surprisingly short time; and the mysteries of "Bobs" major and minor, single and triple, "Caters," "Cinques," and "Grandsire Triples," are on such occasions fairly unriddled and mastered.

The Bells! how charming the associations they waken up! Who, that has wandered far away from his native city, town, or village, and returned again on a still summer evening as the bells were pealing, has not felt his heart throb and his throat thicken at their sound,-welcoming back the wanderer like some old friend-and in an instant, waking up a thousand recollections of his childhood. They sound like a mild voice from the skies, bringing back the memory of old faces, old sports, and old friends.

One of the most exquisite passages in Goethe's Faust is that in which he describes the recollections of childhood as awakened by the sound of the Sabbath Bells:

In other and in happier days

Amid the Sabbath's solemn calm, The kiss of heavenly love and praise Fell on me like a sacred balm ; My youthful heart thus often found A mystic meaning in the sound Of the full bell,-and I could share The deep enjoyment of a prayer.

Melodious tones! continue yet!

Sound on, thou sweet and heavenly strain,
The tear hath flown-mine eye is wet-
And earth has won her child again!

The Bells have many sounds and many meanings. Hark! there is the peal of joy on the birth of some son and heir of a great house-of a duke, or of a

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prince. How merry the swift peal! How sharp and clear the bells ring their notes into the upper air!

And there is the silver wedding peal-so gay and blithesome--full of hope, joy, and promise. It bespeaks consummated bliss, and a new start in the march of life. It begins musically, but it does not always so end :

For what is Love, I praie thee tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is perhaps, that passing bell

Which tolls all unto heaven or hell:-
And this is Love, as I heare tell.

And there is the funeral bell, with its muffled tone, speaking of sobs, and mourning, and lamentation,of Death, the great destroyer and leveller,-the terrible democrat of the world, who brings the king and the peasant to the same level at last.

The reader will remember the charming story in Mrs. Leicester's School, descriptive of Susan Yates, who lived with her parents in the Lincolnshire fens, in a lone house some miles distant from the nearest village, and had never been to church, nor could imagine what a church was like; and when the wind set in from a particular point, and brought over the moor the sound of the bells from St. Mary's, little Susan conceived it was a "quiet tune," occasioned by birds up in the air, or that it was made by the angels. She then tells of the Sunday morning of her first going to church from her remote home; of the anxiety and awe she felt, and her child-like wonder at the place, and at what she heard,-and ever afterwards, when she listened to the sweet voice of bells, of her thinking of the angels singing, and the thoughts she had in her uninstructed solitude. This is indeed turning the sound of bells to beautiful and poetical

uses.

Assuredly there is something superstitious connected with bells; at all events, the common people regard the passing bell in a strangely superstitious light. This has arisen from the ideas associated with bells in old Catholic times, when they were baptized, consecrated, and set apart for holy uses, by special and appointed forms. The sound of consecrated bells was, in early times, supposed to drive the Evil Spirit from the soul of the departing Christian. Wynkin de Worde, one of the earliest of English printers, in The Golden Legend, observes :-"It is said, the evil

The bells were also supposed to have an intelligence of their own, and when one was removed from its original and favourite situation, it was supposed to take a nightly trip to its old place of residence, unless exercised in the evening, and secured with a chain and rope. In Sir John Sinclair's statistical account of Scotland, there is an account given of a bell belonging to the old chapel of St. Fillan, in the parish of Killin, Perthshire, which usually lay on a gravestone in the churchyard. Mad people were brought hither to be dipped in the saint's pool, after certain ceremonies were performed, partly Druidical and partly Catholic; the maniac was then confined all night in the chapel, bound with ropes, and in the morning the bell was set upon his head with great solemnity. This was the Highland cure for mania! It was the popular superstition of the district, that this bell would, if stolen, extricate itself out of the thief's hands, and return to its original place, ringing all the way! It is now locked up, to prevent its being used for superstitious purposes.

The Christmas Bells! Here is a wide theme, on which we may ring the changes in due season; and the New Year's Bells-ringing the old year out and the new year in. Then there is the Pancake bell, which used to be rung on Shrove Tuesday; and the Allhallow-tide bells rung all night long,-for fairies, goblins, and evil spirits, were supposed to be rife at that season. But the Reformation came in and spoilt much of the old bell-ringing,-especially that connected with the feasts and festivals of the church.

But there is the curfew bell! A remnant of a very ancient and historic practice in our country. How beautifully Gray introduces the subject of his Elegy, with

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

There are few towns and villages to this day, in which the curfew bell is not rung. The old use has ceased; few know why the evening bell is rung; if you ask the reason, your answer will be :-"It is an old custom." Yes! as old as William the Conqueror. The curfew is still a remnant of the Conquest. "Extinguish your fire and candle light." That was the original meaning of the bell. Some say, that the curfew, or couvre feu (literally, cover or extinguish the fire), was an ancient practice in most countries, in order to prevent danger from fires, at a time when houses were nearly all built of wood. But we do not like to give up the historical tradition, which is in accordance with all our preconceived notions, and, if not true, at least ought to be. But even though the curfew originated, as some allege, at a period anterior to the Conquest, what a savour of antiquity there is about the practice! That the same curfew bell which nightly rings in our ears now, should have sounded in the ears of the old Anglo-Saxons living in Alfred's day! We are carried at once back to the times of our timber-housed ancestors, and the curfew is the link that binds the old race and the new :

I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar.

So sang Milton more than two hundred years ago;

so that the practice was continued through his day down even to our own.

And the dangers of fire are so frightful, that to avoid them was worthy of the utmost care of the city, town, and village authorities. Have you heard the Fire-bell at night? A terrible sound is that, with its clamorous shrieking wail, and sharp pangs of agony shot into the darkness, making night hideous. The cry of "Fire!" at night is one of the most fearful of sounds; dreadful because of the horrors which it betokens, and the terrible associations which the startled imagination at once summons up at the cry. Then, indeed, the bells have no music in their voice, but agony, despair, and frightful horror.

To turn to the more pleasing voices of bells. What do the bells say? What said they to Whittington ? Turn again, Whittington,

Thrice Lord Mayor of London.

A true prophecy, it is said! What long tongues these Bow bells had in Whittington's time! and truly oracular their exhortation proved in his case!

There are other bells which utter a less pleasing response, thus,—

As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks;

As the fool thinks, so the bell tinks.

It may not be generally known, that King James I. of Scotland was induced to write his poem called The King's Quair by the chiming of the bells. He was lying in confinement at Windsor Castle, thinking over his past sufferings and trials, when he says,

Weary with lying, I listened suddenly, And soon I heard the bells to matins ring, And up I rose, nor longer would I lie; But now, how trow ye such a fantasy Fell on my mind, that aye methought the bell Said to me, "Tell on, man, what thee befell." And so he forthwith "made a cross, and began the book."

A story is told of a widow having once gone to a monk of Cluny to ask his advice about the person she proposed to marry; and the monk, who was a cautious man, referred her to the church bells to settle the doubtful question. The bells were rung, and the widow distinctly heard them say, "Prends ton valet, prends ton valet" (take thy valet, take thy valet). So she married the valet; but he proved a worse husband than he had done a servant, and she went to reproach the curé for his conduct; his answer was, that she must have misapprehended the language of the bells, and then he had them rang again. This time indeed, the poor lady heard plainly enough that they said "Ne le prends pas, ne le prends pas," (don't take him, don't take him,) but it was too late. The meaning of this story is,

As the fool thinks, so the bell tinks.

Rabelais tells an equally amusing story of Panurge, who was very much perplexed about the question of matrimony. And he too consulted the bells, which said, as they sounded at a distance:-"Take thou a wife, take thou a wife, and marry, marry, marry; for if thou marry, thou shalt find good therein, therein, therein; a wife thou shalt find good, so marry, marry, marry." Then Panurge resolved he would marry. But lo! as

he approached nearer to the bells, they seemed to change their exhortation, and now they called out loudly:-"Do not marry, marry not, not, not, not, not; marry, marry not, not, not, not, not; if thou marry, thou wilt miscarry, carry, carry; thou'lt repent it, resent it; do not marry, marry, marry." The presumption is, that Panurge was warned against a beldam, and whether he married her or not, the reader must consult Rabelais himself.

Have we said enough of bells? They afford a wide

Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells,

Of youth and home, and that sweet time,
When last I heard their soothing chime.

Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart, that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.
And so 'twill be when I am gone;
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells!

LE MORVAN AND ITS SPORTS.* WHO ever heard of Le Morvan? Who, of all the travelling birds that quit the shores of England, when the weathercock points the right way, to fly through France and Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and Palestine, who of them all has heard of, or has seen, Le Morvan? Your Englishman goes everywhere,-to China, to Africa, to Timbuctoo; to the Pyrennees, to box with bears; to the Bush, to kill tigers by the dozen; to the Nile, to straddle the backs of crocodiles, and to waltz with dying hippopotami, and to bag elephants by scores, everywhere, in fact, but to Le Morvan. Of that land of vineyards and woodcraft he knows nothing:-nothing of its green hills, its forests, its wild deer, or its people, yet there it lies, undisturbed by tourists and speculators, the very flower of lovely France,-like a wild strawberry in

the centre of the forest.

Le Morvan is a charming and picturesque forest district of France, a region of verdure and wild sports, replete with resources both for health and adventure. At present unknown, it only needs to be made the resort of some man of rank in England, to come forth from its shell of obscurity, and become the favourite resort of the wealth and fashion of this country. What was Cannes twenty years ago?-unknown, unheard of: Lord Brougham passed there,-was charmed with its fields of jasmine and roses,-pitched a chateau on a hilltop,-scattered gold from his purse; and Cannes is now the vogue; and thousands go yearly to revel in its orange-groves and pine-woods. "But Cannes," says Henri de Crignelle, "is a lavender-water country, beautiful for gouty and asthmatic patients: Le Morvan is the land for active and vigorous men.'

It is an

Le Morvan, formerly called Morvennium,--comprises a portion of the departments of the Nièvre and the Yonne, lying between vine-clad Burgundy and the mountains of the Nivernois. extensive country, and possesses the most delightful climate of any in France. There is little rain; the sky is serene, and the temperature genial and bracing. In the woods occasional tempests occur, but they are succeeded by a delicious coolness and innumerable perfumes. The real wealth of the district, however, is its forests, which-thick and dark, and formed of ancient oaks, maple, and spreading beech- -cover nearly 200,000 acres of ground; those of the Yonne being larger, but less wild. In these forests thousands of trees are felled annually, and flung into the neighbouring torrent, and these, on reaching a more

Le Morvan [a district of France], its wild sports, vineyards, and forests. By Henri de Crignelle. Translated from the French manuscript by Captain Jesse. Saunders & Otley.

tranquil stream, are lashed into rafts, and drifted by the stream to Paris. The capital of the country,Vezelay,- -crowns a hill 2,000 feet in height, and commands a panorama of the country for thirty miles around. Vezelay itself is not without interest as a remnant of the feudal times. It was founded by Gerarde de Roussillon, a great hero of chivalry, who lived, loved, and fought under the father of Charlemagne. In the tenth century the people of Vezelay distinguished themselves by their steady opposition to priestly power, and attested their sincerity by submission to martyrdom. In the twelfth century the Second Crusade was preached by St. Bernard, in the cathedral of Vezelay; in 1519 it was the birthplace of Beza, the Protestant reformer; and during the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, under Charles IX., it was the place of refuge for thousands of persecuted Protestants.

The geological details of this district possess some degree of interest from the thick strata of schistose rock which underlies it, in which are found, imbedded, trunks of trees, ferns, and fossil shells. The trachytic rock, also, is rich in curious shells, and remnants of petrified fish, and shapeless, and nameless creatures. In a mountain called the Val d'Aroy, an engineer, in cutting a road, some years ago, exhumed a perfect salmon, enclosed in the heart of a block of stone. This was transmitted to Paris, where it may now be seen in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, under a glass, ticketed and pasted to the wall.

The forests of Le Morvan are the scenes of its attractiveness and adventure. These sylvan depths are fertile in all that can charm the eye, and give the smack of wood-life and peril which make the hunter's life so sweet. Here the evening breezes are charged with the songs of ten thousand birds, the odours of the eglantine, the lily of the valley, and the violet, which opens its blue eye, and mingles its perfume with that of its companions.

These

These forests are full of game; and within their friendly shadows the sportsman may vary his pleasures as fancy dictates. The woods abound with deer; the plains with rabbits and the timid hare; and in the vineyards, during the merry season of the vintage, the red-legged partridges are bagged by bushels. Here the sportsman may watch, in the open glade, for the treacherous wild cat and the bounding roebuck; or, plunging into the dark recesses of the glens, come face to face with the grisly boar, and fight, single-handed, the ferocious wolf. forests, too, are dotted here and there with villages, inhabited by a simple peasantry, who cherish among them many of the primitive customs of their forefathers, and inherit also their industry and frugality. The productions of the plains are numerous; wheat, rye, hemp, oats, and flax, being the chief; the grape is cultivated on the mountain-sides, and around the forest homesteads many kine cluster, sweetening the morning air with their dairy smell, and forming a fit accompaniment to the songs of light-hearted and beautiful peasant-girls.

Here and there, in shady nooks of the forest, are large pools of water, the drainage of the hills above, or the aggregations of many little mountain streams, which tinkle along the green glades and water innumerable flowers and waving ferns, as they hasten along on their mission of fertility. These pools are called mares, and are of such different dimensions, and so differently placed, as to be divisible into three kinds. Those which are situated in the deepest and most unfrequented tracts are the resort of deer, wolves, and wild boars, who come steathily at midnight to slake their thirst in the water, which, shut in with a wall of verdure, and roofed over with innumerable green boughs, are never quite dried-up

in the fiercest heat of summer. Those which are in more open parts of the forest are not visited by such large game, but are the resorts of thousands of little birds, which come to splash and play in the reeds, and awaken innumerable echoes as they thank heaven for each draught of drink. The third kind are those which lie on the skirts of villages, the banks of which get well trodden by the repeated visits of the pail and pitcher, and the thirsty cattle.

In the violent heats of July and August, when the herbage is parched, and the creatures of the forest lie in their retreats overpowered with heat, or lie panting on the leaves in the sultry air, the larger mares are as silent as a woman at a keyhole; but no sooner has the sun gone down than these woody and leafy nooks are filled with strange noises, like those of an aviary, the thousand songs of a thousand different kinds of birds, varying with the dull notes of the cuckoo, and the plaintive cooing of the doves. At first, hundreds of birds arrive to gossip, to bathe and to drink; then hares and rabbits; then the graceful deer, their large, open eyes watchful of every shadow, steal with noiseless tread to crop the fresh herbage and enjoy the cool water. The sportsman, concealing himself in the near thicket, may now bring down the noble buck, and send the troop, wild with affright, back into the black cover. But no pull not the trigger; see how nature weaves the warp of one life with the woof of another. There are crowds of deer pressing to the water's edge; they prick their ears, and turn to the wind; they smell danger, and would fly, but it is too late, they are chained in terror to the spot; the wolves have closed in upon them from behind, and with a sullen roar, rush in multitudes from every side of the forest upon them. All is blood and agony; the forest swells up with the hellish yells of the savage brutes, as each seizes his victim by the throat; and during a quarter of an hour, nothing but carnage and horror possess the midnight woods. The slaughter over, the wretches vanish like demons across the turf, and silence reigns again ere morning dawns. Before the bluebell, heavy with dew, nods to the foxglove and the awakening woodlark, the young fawns, lost in the wild ravines, bleat for the mothers whom they will see no more; and the wild boar, leaving his lurking-place, trots in his turn to the scene of bloodshed, to plunge his heavy body in the waters and luxuriate in the slimy mud.

These mares are the chosen haunts of the sportsman; they afford him every variety of game, and are as bewitching in their sylvan beauty and loneliness as they are attractive in their ample stocks of game. It is a forest rule, that upon the discovery of a mare, a shooting-hut is erected at its margin, and when once it becomes an established hunting-place, he who arrives at it first at night remains its possessor till morning; only one sportsman being allowed at one time, and the game being invariably trapped or shot after nightfall. To gain possession of one of these huts every stratagem is fair; once ensconced within, the hunter sits like Solomon upon his throne; and if another one arrives, coolly pops out his head and asks him what's o'clock, or recommends him to travel another eight or ten miles to another very fine mare, where he arrives, perhaps, to find that occupied also.

Night has come, and the sportsman sits in his hunting-box. Hares and rabbits scuttle about; but his powder is for nobler victims. The roebucks are on their way; and the she-wolf is raising her head above the thicket. Every gust of wind brings tidings of some fresh arrival: a squirrel or a weasel crosses the path the waving branches are full of mysterious sounds; and the heart thumps under the hunter's jacket with irrepressible excitement; he grasps his rifle with a firmer clutch, and he glances at his

hunting-knife with anxiety. The branches yield to the weight of some animal: the moon rises; and the roebucks are heard in the distance; then the step of the wolves; and afterwards the rush of the boar. The hunter, filled with a wild joy, threads with his keen eye the gloomy labyrinths of the thicket; and, surrounded with danger and wild romance, peers out from his lonely hut, and takes his choice of victims.

One of the most frequent objects of the sportsman's skill, is the woodcock, which haunts the forests of Le Morvan in vast numbers, and affords innumerable opportunities for the exercise of skill and patience. The woodcock is a lazy, melancholy, misanthropic bird, frequenting these forests during the whole of the year, and not, as in other European countries, performing tedious migrations at regular periods. În the months of May, June, July, and August, they are found in elevated spots, but at the first approach of cold weather they come down into the plains, and conceal themselves in the high grass, or fern, and live an anti-social and selfish life, amid the shelter of the trees. The woodcock is a dainty morsel, and hence the sportsman is solicitous of its capture, both by snare and gun. Requiring no other elements of happiness than moonlight, rest, and a few worms, it seldom quits its retreat by daylight; but as soon as twilight comes, it sallies forth in all its simplicity, to poke its long beak into the grass, and falls into the first snare that lies in its way. The favourite mode of snaring them is, to choose a forest-path well covered with verdure, and lighted by a few stray moonbeams. The twigs and brambles are cut, and the path narrowed, so as to allow room for only two woodcocks to walk abreast. A hole, as large as a crown-piece, is then made in the ground, and a horsehair noose, fixed to a peg, laid across it. Into the hole is dropped a fine fat red worm, whose miserable contortions, as he writhes upon the point of a thorn, attract the woodcock. Several other snares are made, and each baited with an impaled worm, and concealed with a withered leaf, and twilight falling on the forest finds the sportsman covered up in warm skins, fifty paces from his traps. On come the long bills, pecking as they come, and looking now and then, with languid eyes, at the moon and stars. Presently a bird makes a bob at a writhing worm,-gets his leg in a noose,— totters,-falls,-rises again and kicks, and so makes the noose run up tight, and is inevitably trapped. Another and another follows; and the sportsman, repairing his traps as they are successively disordered, keeps up the game till dawn. In this way a single person may catch twenty or thirty woodcocks in one night; but it is a sport requiring consummate skill, patience, and an iron constitution. If suddenly surprised when feeding in the forest, the woodcock is the most helpless of birds; he falls down, literally panic-stricken, and without having the power of flight he looks at his supposed enemy with rolling eyeballs and a beak opened, as if to cry for help, but emitting nothing but inarticulate sounds. Once relieved of his first fears, he takes to his heels, and finds refuge among the roots. In shooting woodcocks, considerable experience and tact is requisite for success. The woodcocks, though very obtuse, and subject to sudden fright, have vast adroitness in evading the sportsman's powder when they have the range of the forest before them. The young sportsman, not aware of its manoeuvres, sees it rise in a straight flight above the bushes, and fires forthwith, seeing the bird- -as he thinks-fall dead among the brakes. But no woodcock can he find; and, on raising his eye, lo! he sees the provoking bird a hundred paces off, cleaving the air with sails full set;