stantly recognized their old favourite. Great was the lamentation that was made over him, and loud and vehement their indignation at the impatient rabble who had so summarily ended his days. His sagacity was an endless theme of discourse; story after story was told of him, and so great was the sympathy of all the fair-going people, that for some time they forgot the amusements that surrounded them, to condole over the unfortunate raven that came to the fair in all his finery to meet so tragic an end.

ANECDOTE III.

HOW A BULLFINCH DIED OF JOY.

THERE was once a bullfinch kept by a lady which was so extremely fond of her as to exceed any instance of attachment I ever heard of before. Her presence created a sort of sunshine to him, and he sung and rejoiced with his whole heart when she was by; while he drooped in her absence, and would sit silent in his cage for whole days together.

The lady fell sick, and was confined to her

bed for a week with so severe an illness as to be entirely disabled from thinking of the bird. At length, when she was sufficiently recovered to see him, she ordered his cage to be brought and set upon the bed beside her. The poor bird knew her voice in an instant, though it was weak and low with her extreme fever. The cage-door was opened; he uttered a shrill cry between a song and a scream-fluttered from her hand to her cheek, and then fell down dead!

ANECDOTE IV.

ABOUT A MAN AND A BEAR.

WHEN I was wandering in the back-woods of North America (said a traveller,) I came one day upon an old man, the most picturesque object I ever saw; his dress was of coarse home manufacture, and was rudely shaped to his large-boned person, probably by the hands of some female tailor. His clothes were torn by wandering among forests, and literally hung about him in shreds and tatters; and amidst the various parts of his wearing apparel, several

seen.

little articles of Indian manufacture were to be Over his deer-skin leggins he wore the curiously wrought moccasins or Indian shoes: in the place of a hat, he had a scarlet wampumbelt bound round his head, and he smoked from an Indian pipe. Notwithstanding this curious. costume, his countenance showed at a glance that he belonged to civilized society; and his friendly salutation, spoken in good English, sounded delightful to me, after having ceased to hear my native tongue for many weeks.

The old man sat upon a fallen tree, and seemed to have just taken his repast; for his dried venison and Indian bread, and yet open wallet, lay before him. I needed no second invitation to partake his seat; and drawing forth. my own store of provision, followed his example.

My old man of the woods was a surveyor, employed by the American government to measure and set out tracts of land in the back settlements. It was a wild and lonely life that he led, and one which afforded him continual opportunity of gaining knowledge of Indian life and character, and of observing the habits of the beasts and birds of the wilderness.

The bears, he told me, were the most trou

blesome neighbours he had in his out-of-doors life; and he said that he was obliged to hang the wallet containing his provision in a tree while he slept, otherwise these audacious creatures would steal it, even from under his head. He was sleeping, he said, one night, with his wallet for his pillow, when he was awoke by something violently tugging at it. He started up, and saw in the early dawn a shaggy black bear he rose, and opening his bag, threw him. a large piece of his dried venison, saying "There, take that, and welcome!" The bear snapped it up, and then stood waiting for more: he threw him another piece, saying "Take that then, and prithee, begone!" Again the bear stood in expectation. A third time he threw him a slice, exclaiming, "Why, thou'st no conscience;-take that, and be satisfied!" But the bear, still insatiable, gulped down the third piece with a great swallow, and again stood waiting for more. At this, the man's patience

came to an end, and heaving up his great staff he gave him a lusty blow on his head, bellowing at the highest pitch of his voice, "Take that then, and be off with thee !" Upon this the bear, uttering a loud cry, trotted away into the woods, and the old man saw no more of

him; but after this adventure, he took care to hang his provisions far enough out of the reach of the bears.

ANECDOTE V.

OF A DOG THAT COULD AND COULD NOT RECKON TIME.

MANY persons think that dogs, however sagacious, have no notion of the recurrence of periods of time, unless they are guided by external signs; as, for instance, the return of the Sunday by the cessation of the week's labour. But there was a dog which was guided by something beyond this in his calculation of times, and of him I am about to give an anecdote. He was a white terrier of a good race, and his name was Pry; and though active and clever in the pursuit of vermin, not remarkably gifted with any great intellectual powers. He belonged to a family of the Society of Friends, who lived in a country place, and who were in the habit of attending their meeting-their week-day meeting, as they called it-on the Thursday, some