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dwell under it, resenting any injury done the birds as an offence against themselves. In this part of the world, storks generally build their nests upon the roofs of the houses; but in the East, where the roofs are all flat, and the inhabitants frequently reside upon them, in the summer months, the storks choose the highest trees for their nests and habitations. The Psalmist notices their residing in the fir-trees in Palestine (Psalm civ. 17).

Storks are very frequently seen in Spain; and are still more numerous in many parts of Asia. At Bagdad, hundreds are found about the houses, walls, and trees; and, amongst the stately ruins of Persepolis, almost every column is surmounted by the nest of a stork. In the autumn they retire into Egypt and the marshes of Barbary, where they enjoy a second summer, and bring up a second brood. Their migration is in immense companies. Dr. Shaw says, that he saw three flocks of them pass over Mount Carmel, each half a mile in width; and the whole were three hours in going by. Another writer says, that they visit Egypt in such numbers, that the fields and meadows are white with them. The natives hail their arrival with great pleasure, from the swarms of frogs and the numbers of serpents and lizards that they devour. In Palestine, and other places, they destroy innumerable rats and mice.-Tiler's Natural History.

THE PAPYRUS.

THE papyrus most naturally suggests itself, whenever we turn our attention to the vegetable productions of Egypt. The stalk is of a vivid green, of a triangular form, and tapering towards the top. Pliny says, that the root is as thick as a man's arm, and that the plant occasionally exceeds fifteen feet in height. At present it is rarely found more than ten feet long; about two feet, or little more, of the lower part of the stalk being covered with hollow, sharp-pointed leaves, which overlap each other like scales, and fortify the most exposed part of the stem. These are usually of a yellow or dusky-brown colour. The head is composed of a number of small grassy filaments, each about a foot long. Near the middle,

each of these filaments parts into four, and in the point or partition are four branches of flowers, the termination of which is not unlike an ear of wheat in form, but is, in fact, a soft, silky husk.

This singular vegetable was used for a variety of purposes; the principal of which were, the structure of boats and the manufacture of paper. In regard to the first, we are told by Pliny, a piece of the acacia-tree was put in the bottom, to serve as a keel, to which the plants were joined, being first sewed together, then gathered up at the stem and stern, and made fast by means of a ligature.

But it is as a substance for writing upon that the papyrus is best known, and most interesting to the scholar. The process by which the plant was prepared for this purpose, is briefly stated by the Roman naturalist. The thick part of the stalk being cut in two, the pellicle between the pith and bark, or perhaps the two pellicles, were stripped off, and divided by an iron instrument. This was squared at the sides, so as to be like a riband, then laid upon a smooth table, after being cut into proper lengths. These strips or ribands were lapped over each other by a very thin border, and then pieces of the same kind were laid transversely, the length of these last answering to the breadth of the first. This being done, a weight was laid upon them while they were yet moist; they were then dried in the sun. It was thought that the water of the Nile had a gummy quality sufficiently strong to glue these strips together; but Mr. Bruce, who ascertained by experiment that this opinion is perfectly groundless, suggests that the effect was produced by means of the saccharine matter with which the papyrus is strongly impregnated. The flower of this plant, it is well known, was used for religious purposes.-Cabinet Library.

THE HABITS OF THE MOLE.

THE habits of the mole will vary with the soil, and particularly with the structure of the ground, as it is rich and deep, or shallow, level, rocky, uneven, or intersected with raised mounds, or hedges of earth five or six feet high, and

of the same thickness, such as divide fields in the West of England. The presence of this animal is known by the heaps of fine earth, or hills, thrown up during its subterraneous operations: in deep ground little of its labours can be traced, except when thus marked; but in a thin soil, or in hard ground, a ridge is often driven along, which is distinctly raised above the ordinary level of the surface; and the mole-hill is only elevated where the earth is so fine, that the removal of some part of it is necessary, to give the creature a clear course in its runs backward and forward. The creep or run is in a zigzag direction; and when the neighbourhood is very productive of its prey, exceedingly so, as if the animal were unwilling to pass out of so fertile a district. But for the most part it takes a straightforward course; and in the open space of a down, it passes through more than fifty paces of distance without lifting a heap, with a progress amounting to two or three human paces in a day, and the whole run is two hundred feet in length. In the course of this passage, advantage is taken of any obstructions which occur, as if conscious of the probability of pursuit ; and the run is made to pass among the roots of dwarf furze, and even under a large stone, while, at irregular distances, openings are made to allow of excursions on the surface, and the free admission of air. There are many lateral branches from the principal passage, but none of them extend to any great distance; for it seems wisely to avoid forming such a labyrinth as might confound itself in its daily course, or in its efforts to escape from an enemy, to whose depredations it is exposed even in its retreat. Its time of labour is chiefly at an early hour in the morning; but if everything be still, it may be seen at work at other seasons. The slightest sound or movement of an approaching foot stops the work, and no further lifting of the earth will be attempted that day. These runs are mostly made towards the end of autumn; are this creature's huntinggrounds for food; are abandoned when the soil has been thoroughly searched through and through; and though they are formed with so much toil as to make it desirable not to desert it while there is anything to be done there, yet in a month or two the animal quits it for new ground, perhaps at a great distance, where the hunting promises better

success.

A favourite spot for its winter quarters, and one it prefers at other seasons, is in enclosed fields, under the shelter of a hedge of high-piled earth, along the middle of whose base the run is carried, and in whose mass of mould it finds security from cold and from its natural enemies. The heaps it throws up are cast on the sides, and at intervals a lateral passage is driven into the field, to which, when the inducement is powerful, it transfers its principal operations: and there encounters its greatest hazards from the traps of the mole-catcher, and the pursuit of the weasel and the rat, with whom it fights furiously, but without success. When undisturbed, the mole often shifts its quarters; and in making a new selection, its choice seems to be much influenced by caprice. It makes these changes especially in the months of July and August; but I have known it take excursions of removal to such distances, that no mark of its presence could be detected, in the month of January, if an open and moist season. A large part of such a journey must be along the surface, and it is probable that at all times this is its mode of emigration to distant places. In summer, much of its time is thus passed in migrations from one field to another, because the hardness of the ground renders it difficult to throw up the soil, and follow up the worms, which have sunk deeper down into the soil: it shows the same love of change in moist weather, when the ground is more workable; and the practice indeed seems a periodical variation of habit, common to it with the shrews, which also are inhabitants of burrows, and to all which species it seems essential to health. A fatality consequent on the emerging of the latter little creatures has excited the curiosity of naturalists. They are often found dead in the paths, with no mark of injury about them to account for their death, which we have no doubt is to be attributed to their having been pounced upon by an owl; who kills them by a nip of the beak without breaking the skin, and then rejects them, as meat for their masters, perhaps, but not for them, who have a taste for the daintier sort of delicacies. Limited in their powers of sight, they are also surprised by cats, who immediately throw them away, as not liking them. Their deaths may be thus accounted for.

If not to its mind, the mole repeatedly changes its quarters; and though shut up in darkness, it reluctantly

continues on the northern declivity of a hill, where it has little light and less heat, unless its other advantages are unusually great. Its migration from one district to another exposes it to great danger, as it is slow to escape, and little prepared to defend itself. The opening of a new track is often concealed in a heap of the soil which has been brought up from the interior; and at times it is firmly blocked up from within, but I have seen it left carelessly open. It is by these entrances that the weasel, the rat, and the larger vole sometimes enter, and are themselves taken in the trap.

The run is differently formed in spring, in consequence of a difference of object. Where fields are not large, the hedge is still the selected spot; on which account its nest is not often discovered. Mr. Bell has given a sketch of the skilful arrangements made for its safety at this time ; but in districts where the hedge is chosen for defence, no other departure from its usual form is made than an enlargement of the space, and a more comfortable lining. Fourteen young ones have been discovered in one nest: but though the mole is not a social animal, it is hard to believe that they could have been littered by one mother.

The mole may sleep more in winter than in other seasons, but it is not its habit to become torpid at this time. In frost and snow, fine earth is often seen freshly turned up as evidence of its activity; but as it is a creature of great voracity, and cannot endure long fasting, like many wild animals of that character, it is not easy to say how its wants are at this time supplied. A dead or living bird, numbed with the cold, is always a welcome morsel; but its track has not been seen in the snow in pursuit of it. It perceives the earliest approach of a thaw; and after long seclusion, a heap may be seen protruding through the thin covering of snow, as evidence of its sensibility to change of temperature; a circumstance more easily understood, when we recollect that it is the radiation of heat from the inner parts of the earth, which exercises the first influence in the change; and that it is because the air abstracts this heat more rapidly than the earth supplies it, that frost and snow are produced and continued. When, from changes in the atmosphere, this rapid abstraction ceases, the heat below becomes more sensibly felt, and this is first visible at the surface of the soil.

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