his attempts to get at the delicious nectar; but if he is perplexed, it is but for a moment: if he cannot get at it one way, he tries another. Look at him engaged with a larkspur in full bloom. There is but little pollen, or bee-bread, to be got from this flower, and he has soon done with the open blossom; but the larkspur wears a long and slightly curling horn in the rear, which sticks out like an old gentleman's pigtail in a picture; and in that, at the very extremity of it, is the fluid which Master Bee is in search of. To reach it at the natural opening is out of the question. The orifice would not admit the smallest pin's head, and the tube is two-thirds of an inch long. What does he do? He quietly crawls round to the end of the tube, and by means of some apparatus with which a kind Providence has furnished him, drills a small hole in the extremity of it, inserts his pumping engine, and drains the vessel dry. We are not aware that this curious circumstance has been remarked before; but we have watched the operation many times in our own garden. Upon plucking the flowers thus rifled, and examining them, we found the holes neatly drilled, the soft fibre of the flower being removed in the operation, the hole being clean, without jagged edges, and not larger than would be made by the puncture of a shirt-maker's needle. Any person who is sceptical as to the object of the bee in this proceeding, may, by biting off the ends of a few of these larkspur tubes, taste very perceptibly the saccharine matter which attracts him. Is this also an instinct ?

The "cricket on the hearth" is the sentimental and poetical favourite of a good many people who are not obliged to be his near neighbours, while he is the nuisance and plague of a very numerous class whose fireside comforts, when they have any, are on the kitchen floor. Whether we look upon him as a pet or a plague, we are certainly not in the habit of attributing to him anything like sagacity or forethought. We see him and his tribe by hundreds, walking by night, along with silly cockroaches, into a dish of stale beer, to drink and drown ingloriously-or jumping headlong into a basin of scalding tea, to perish in a boiling bath or grubbing about in the ashes beneath the fire, at the risk of being crushed by a hot cinder. But the cricket is not altogether a fool. Sitting the other day by the kitchen fire, to dry ourselves after a sudden shower, we noticed Mr. Cricket popping up his head from a crack in the hearth-stone. We thought perhaps he might be hungry, and dropped a few small crumbs near his hole. Our shadow startled him, and he disappeared for an instant. In a moment or two, however, he came boldly forth, walked to the largest crumb, seized it and carried it to his hiding-place, returning immediately, until he had fetched them all. We tried him again with larger pieces-several much larger than himself. Most of these he carried off with perfect ease: but mark the perfection of his instinct; the hole in the stone from which he emerged was barely large enough to admit of his passage; when he carried small pieces of bread he ran rapidly down the hole head-foremost; but with larger pieces, he invariably got into the hole backwards, pulling the bread after him, evidently to avoid the possibility of blocking up the hole, and thus preventing his own escape in case of alarm. At last there remained one

piece too large for him to remove. He now called a companion to assist; the two together dragged it to the mouth of the hole, where they ensconced themselves safely, and then, with bodies half protruded, set to work to reduce the mass to admissible dimensions, a task which it took them twenty minutes to accomplish ere the last crumb was safely housed.

The destructive insect called by gardeners "the American blight," but known by naturalists as the aphis, must be familiar to every owner of a garden or an orchard. Were it not for its mortal enemy, the larva of the coccinella (lady-bird, or lady-cow), its destructive ravages would be infinitely greater than they are. The aphides cluster round the tender shoots of fruit-trees, and, thick as sheep in a fold, are incapable of flight. Among them comes the coccinella like a wolf, and slaughters them by hundreds. But the most curious fact in connexion with these aphides is the relation existing between them and the ants. Goëdaert, an old naturalist, affirms that these insects are the progeny of the ants, an error still prevalent among the lower classes. There is no doubt a warm attachment existing between the ants and the aphides; but, on the part of the former at least, it is of an interested character-a pure example of "cupboard love." The aphides secrete a sugared fluid, and it is this of which the ants are fond. The ant ascends the trees, says Linnæus, that it may milk its cows, the aphides; and its proceedings amongst its cattle, which may be easily watched by any attentive observer, have been thus graphically described:-"The aphides, when no ants attend them, waste the sweet fluid which they produce, and, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance; but when the ants are at hand, watching the moment when the aphides emit their fluid, they seize and suck it down immediately. This, however, is the least of their talents, for they absolutely possess the art of making them yield it at pleasure; or, in other words, of milking them. On this occasion their antennæ are their fingers; with these they pat the abdomen of the aphis on each side alternately, moving them very briskly till a little drop of the honeyed fluid appears, which the ant immediately takes into its mouth and swallows. But this is not the most singular part of the history. Ants make a property of these cows, for the possession of which they contend with great earnestness, and use every means to keep them to themselves. Sometimes they seem to claim a right to the aphides that inhabit the branches of a tree or the stalks of a plant; and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with them, they endeavour to drive them away, and may be seen running about in a great bustle, and exhibiting every symptom of inquietude and anger. Sometimes, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their aphides in their mouths: they generally keep guard around them; and when the branch is conveniently situated, have recourse to an expedient still more effectual to keep off interlopers. They inclose it in a tube of earth and other materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock near their nest, and sometimes communicating with it. One species common in our meadows, the yellow ant (formica flava), which is not fond of

roaming from home, and likes to have all its conveniences within reach, usually collects in its nest a large herd of a kind of aphis that derives its nutriment from the roots of grass and other plants (aphis radicum). These it transports from the neighbouring roots, probably by subterranean galleries excavated for the purpose, leading from the nest in all directions; and thus, without going out, it has always at hand a copious supply of food.' The aphides share the care and solicitude of the ants equally with their own offspring, the latter taking every care of their eggs, and tending them as assiduously in all respects as a farmer would his young lambs or his cattle.

What a vast and inconceivable amount of living enjoyment is comprised in the insect world! Of the number of these minute creatures, the mind fails to grasp the most remote idea. It has been proved by a celebrated naturalist, that a single aphis in its short life may be the parent of a progeny more than fifty times as numerous as the whole number of the human inhabitants of the globe. There are other tribes of equal fecundity; but this marvellous fruitfulness is counterbalanced by swarms of deadly enemies, to whose ravages all in their turn have to submit, and by the sweeping gusts of autumn and winter, which prostrate countless legions at a breath. There is something melancholy in the contemplation of the prodigious havoc committed upon the insect races by the first cold blasts of autumn, and the sight of the once happy swarms reduced to a state of half-animate helplessness. In October, 1850, in walking from the sea-wall at Harwich as far as the Breakwater, we found the margin of the sea for near a mile in length covered with myriads of crane-flies, vulgarly known as father-long-legs. A strong cold wind was blowing from the German ocean, the effects of which had already crippled the whole host so effectually that they were unable to move out of the way, and numbers perished at every step we took. It was impossible to set down the foot without crushing them by dozens. In some sheltered nooks, under the seats, or in crevices in the bank, they had crowded so densely for warmth and refuge, and their long legs had become so entangled together, that thousands might have been lifted in a mass. Thus they continued for several days, until a change of wind carried them out to sea, where in all likelihood they formed an acceptable meal to a shoal of whiting then affording employment to the fishermen of the place. Again, in the early days of September of last year, while making holiday at Southend, we observed a similar phenomenon in connexion with the coccinellæ, or "ladybirds." Innumerable swarms of these pretty little creatures, apparently in a state of stupified inactivity, were clustered about the stones and stakes of the shore, and the wooden piles of the long pier, thousands being submerged by every breaker that fell upon the beach, and the host perishing by millions at the rise of the tide. It would appear to be a law of nature that the survivors of the internecine slaughter which all summer long is going on between the insect tribes, should be devoured in their turn when the combat is over.

Still vast numbers, of the domestic insects especially, contrive to brave the rigours of winter. The common house-fly sets up his winter quarters in a

cranny between the bricks of the kitchen chimney; and we have seen him sally forth before now, lured by the smell of extra sweets and aroused by the warmth of extra roasting, to claim his share of the Christmas pudding. The flesh-fly, too, no favourite with housekeepers, hybernates in huge battalions. We chanced some winters back to have occasion to disturb a set of folding shutters to a parlour window, which had been long unused. We were startled by observing that the plastered wall of the recess for the reception of the shutters was in appearance painted jet-black. On taking a candle, however, to examine more distinctly, we made the unwelcome discovery that the whole area of six feet in length by eighteen inches in width was one compact colony of flesh-flies in a dormant state, clinging layer upon layer three deep. Fortunately they were all palsied or petrified with cold, and were easily swept into a washing-basin, which they more than filled, and not one of them ever woke to buzz again. The window of the room had been left open till sunset every day during sum mer and autumn, for the sake of ventilation, for many years, and it is more than probable that this convenient nook had long been a favourite wintering-place for flesh-flies. The corresponding recess on the other side of the window did not contain a single one.

But we are warned by the bounds we have already reached, to cut short our remarks on insects for the present. Perhaps we may resume the subject another day.

THE RESULTS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. AN interesting article on " The Text of Scripture," in the "North British Review" for August last, thus eloquently points out how little Christians have to fear from the minute researches of critics in this field of inquiry :

"It is a matter of congratulation that here, as elsewhere, the Bible has passed triumphantly through the ordeal. English infidels of the last century raised a premature pan over the discovery and publication of so many various readings. They imagined that the popular mind would be rudely and thoroughly shaken, that Christianity would be placed in imminent peril of extinction, and that the church would be dispersed and ashamed at the sight of the tattered shreds of its Magna Charta. But the result has blasted all their hopes; and the oracles of God are found to have been preserved in immaculate integrity. The storm which shakes the oak only loosens the earth round its roots, and its violence enables the tree to strike its roots deeper into the soil. So it is that Scripture has gloriously surmounted every trial. There gathers around it a dense "cloud of witnesses," from the ruins of Nineveh and the valley of the Nile; from the slabs and bas-reliefs of Sennacherib and the tombs and monuments of Pharaoh; from the rolls of Chaldee paraphrasts and Syrian versionists; from the cells and libraries of monastic scribes and the dry and dusty labours of scholars and antiquarians. Our present bibles are undiluted by the lapse of ages. These oracles, written amidst such strange diversity of time, place, and condition-among the sands and cliffs of Arabia, the fields and hills of Palestine, in

the palace of Babylon and in the dungeons of Rome -have come down to us in such unimpaired fulness and accuracy, that we are placed as advantageously

Purtry.

the book of the law, or those crowds which hung on the lips of Jesus as he recited a parable on the shores of the Galilean lake, or those churches which received from Paul or Peter one of their epistles of warning or exposition. Yes! the river of life which issues out from beneath the throne of God and of the Lamb, may, as it flows through so many countries, sometimes bear with it the earthly evidences of its chequered progress; but the great volume of its waters has neither been dimmed in its transparency nor bereft of its healing virtue."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRIFLES. WHEN Michael Angelo, the great sculptor, was employed on one of his noblest works of art, a friend called in to see him, and during his visit expressed great surprise at finding his statue apparently just the same as when he had seen it a few weeks before.

"Stay, my friend," said the artist; "I can assure you I have been hard at work upon it since I saw you last. I have deepened this furrow on the brow, and slightly depressed the eyelid; I have added another line to the mouth, and

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"Yes, yes," said his friend, "I see all that, but they are only trifles."

"That is true," replied Michael Angelo; "still it is these trifles which make Perfection, and do you call Perfection a trifle ?"

The grand truth thus taught by the intelligent artist must often have been exemplified in our lives, and constant experience shows us that "trifles make the sum of human happiness." Indeed, how insignificant appears the loss of a button or a string, and yet it may be just sufficient to throw us off our guard, and overthrow our last portion of good-humour. A harsh look, a peevish word, a frown, are often important items in our daily self-examination. While, on the other hand, one trifling act of kindness may cause the widow's heart to sing for joy. How small a thing appears a sprig of moss, yet that was sufficient to cheer the heart of one noble wanderer. When Mungo Park was traversing the wilds of Africa for the purpose of ascertaining the source of the Nile, one day he sunk fainting on the sand, overcome by exhaustion and pain. At that moment, a small moss, growing amongst the sand, caught his eye, and inspired him with fresh vigour. "Can that God," thought he, "who provides nourishment for this tiny plant in such a wilderness, suffer me to perish? No, I cannot think 80. He who gives it sustenance, must and will also protect me." Nor was he mistaken; in a short time he was perceived by a poor negro woman, who took him home with her and supplied his wants.

Again, to come to every-day life, how important is the influence that trifles assume! A glove mended or a button stitched on for one, a poem read aloud or a hymn sung to another, or a bunch of fresh violets presented to a third; a new ribbon given to the young, or a pair of warm gloves provided for the old; or a smile, a kind word, an encouraging remark bestowed on any one-who can deny how delightful are such trifles? How very little they look apart; but unite them, and, like the little bits that compose mosaicwork, how beautiful an effect they produce! Let us all, then, try to paint as beautiful a picture of our lives as possible, never forgetting to seek the aid of the Holy Spirit to bless all our efforts.

CONFINED TO A SICK CHAMBER.

O! LITTLE Smiling flower, and dear,
Thou gently whisperest in mine ear
Of insect-hum and golden beam,
Of scented air and silv'ry stream.
Thou in a free, glad home didst spring,
Where song-bird waves the joyous wing,
And the clear heaven above thy head
Soft, loving sunshine o'er thee shed.

And thon hast watch'd the bright stars come
Unto Night's council, one by one,
And heard the rush of spirit-wings,
With whispers of mysterious things.

And Morning's pearls have deck'd thy head,
And fairy feet tripp'd round thy bed;
The wild winds in their sweep have stay'd,
And stoop'd them down with thee, and play'd.
O! that I once again might come
Forth to the breath of thy sweet home;
O for one look on the blue skies
Before I close these weary eyes.

I long, upon my burning brow,
To feel the fresh'ning breezes blow;
And press the soft moss 'neath my feet
Once more, ere death and I do meet.
And I should choose upon my tomb
To have thy crested brethren bloom;
With their upturn'd and cheerful eyes,
Gazing like Hope's upon the skies.
I know of flowers of brighter hue,
But none like thee, so meek and true;
Calm and erect is still thy form
Amid the wintry wreck and storm.
O! simple gem from Flora's crown,
By careless hand beside me thrown;
Thou hast awaken'd memories dear;
I thank thee for thy coming here.

FLOWERS.

MARY LEWIS.

GLAD children of the sun and earth,
With birds e'er carolling your birth,
How beautiful ye are to me,
O'er wild and mead upspringing free.
Ye speak, in low melodious tone,
A language that is all your own;
Ye tell us of a clearer sky,
Where blossoms do not spring to die.

Ye tell us, those we mourn as dead
Shall bright appear, when Time has fled
With its cold wintry storms away,
And breaketh the eternal day.

Ye ever lead my thoughts above
To Him who sent ye in His love,
Whisp'ring of peace and trust in heaven,
To hearts by care and sorrow riven.
Ye fairest of all mortal things,
Ye seem like gems from angel wings,
Dropp'd by some guardian of the night
As he uprose in hasty flight.

Whene'er I watch ye as ye grow,
A holy calm comes o'er my brow,
I lean with stronger trust on God,
And tread more firm the broken sod.
My heart loves all the pleasant things
That the rejoicing Summer brings;
But most of all the scented flowers
With which she strews this earth of ours.

MARY LEWIS.

CLIMATE OF SIERRA LEONE.-Captain Lynch, who is about to undertake a grand exploring expedition into the interior of Africa, on behalf of the American government, does not give much encouragement as to the feasibility of white colonization on the west coast of Africa, even in a temporary way, and for commercial purposes only. He intimates that there is but a single Englishman known to have survived the climate for five years, and at the end of that time the fever carried him off. About forty years ago, the Portuguese colonized an island in the immediate vicinity of Guinea, sending there 7000 persons. At this time, however, there is but a single individual living in whose veins the blood of any of these colonists is believed to course.

ELECTRIC GAS.-In this age of wonderful discoveries, one of the most astonishing that has been for a long time announced consists in the alleged conversion of water, by a simple magneto-electric process of decomposition, into a non-explosive illuminating gas! It is to supersede the use of coal-gas for lighting, heating, and cooking, and of coalfuel for locomotives and steamboats; and a company is, we hear, being formed, with the intention literally of setting the Thames on fire. By the present discovery," says the prospectus of this incipient company, water can be converted into gas at an almost nominal cost." About sixpence per 1000 cubic feet is, we believe, the estimate; while even at this low charge the profits would be considerable. No manufacturing premises or extensive works are required. The process, it appears, may be performed in a magneto-electric machine of comparatively small size, so that every country mansion or town residence, shop or factory, steam-engine or cooking apparatus, locomotive or steamboat, may have its own portable gasometer. The genuineness of the objects of this projected company, chimerical as they may seem, are attested by no less an authority than Dr. Leeson, F.R.S.

At the invitation of the interim managing director," says the "Literary Gazette," "we have made an examination of this invention' for ourselves. An ingeniously-constructed magneto-electric machine of large size is employed in effecting, to all appearance, the decomposition of a fluid contained in a number of bottles. The gas escaping from these is passed through some hydro-carbon compound to give it illuminating power, and it is collected in a gasometer and burnt at once in an ordinary Leslie gas-burner. It is said to be oxygen and hydrogen derived from the decomposition of water, with their explosive property destroyed! These gases, it may be well to explain, as liberated from water, exist in proportions forming a mixture which is violently explosive on the application of a spark; yet here is a gas burning quietly from an ordinary burner, and giving out a flame of the same illuminating power as common coal-gas. The gist of the invention is this. Some preparation-here is the secret-costing twopence to 1000 cubic feet of gas, is used, which, being held in solution in the water, is said to destroy the explosive property of the liberated gases. Now the gases from water should exist in proportions of 889 of oxygen and 11'1 of hydrogen; but an analysis of this gas by Mr. Holmes, Panopticon Professor of Chemistry, was shown to us, giving oxygen about 12, and hydrogen about 82. It is clear therefore that water is not decomposed; and the only inference we can draw from this is, that the electric gas is derived simply from the preparation added to the water."

NEW DISCOVERY OF AN ASSYRIAN OBELISK. The Royal Asiatic Society has lately received intelligence of the discovery, at Kouyunjik, of an obelisk of white stone, 9 feet 2 inches in height from the base to the summit, and 6 feet 3 inches square at the base, so that it is considerably larger than the Nimroud obelisk in the British Museum. It was found lying on its side in the centre of the mound, 15 feet below the surface. It is quite perfect and unbroken, though unhappily the water has defaced some parts of the basreliefs and inscriptions with which it is covered on every side. Colonel Rawlinson thinks the obelisk likely to be one of Assur-akhpal, builder of the north-west palace of Nimroud; though the style and language of the inscriptions, so far as he has examined them, are rather that of Tiglath-Pileser I.

STATISTICAL CONGRESS.-A general statistical congress is about to be held at Brussels, at which many of the most eminent statisticians of Europe, and deputations from the learned societies, are expected to be present.

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-The Mediterranean Electric

Telegraph Company, destined to unite England with Africa, the East Indies and Australia, by way of France, Corsica, Sardinia, and Algeria, is at length constituted, with a capital of 300,000l., divided into 30,000 shares.

LITERARY FECUNDITY.-Between the 11th of Decem.

ber, 1851, and the 11th of December, 1852, Alexander Dumas, the French novelist, has produced, in addition to some miscellaneous compositions of which he takes no note, a total of forty volumes, comprising something like 120,000 lines, or 8,000,000 letters. This pernicious writer records these remarkable statistics, in a communication to the editor of one of the public journals, with evident gratification, and seems confidently to expect that they will excite the admiration of mankind. But, apart from the evil tendency of most of his works, we see nothing creditable to an author in these vast powers of production. The quality of the article so manufactured must be of the most inferior description. This is reducing literary men to mere manuscript-producing machines. Talent and genius were not given to them by God to be diluted in floods of type; and their education and reading were destined for something nobler than the manufacture of bales of trashy volumes for the circulating library. It is sad thus to see what should be a noble profession degraded into a vile mechanical calling, pursued for lucre, instead of God's glory and man's profit.

SOCIETY FOR THE EXPLORATION OF NINEVEH.-We are glad to learn that it is in contemplation to form an association for the purpose of carrying on with energy and spirit the excavations which have been so nobly begun. Mr. Layard is of opinion that he has, so to speak, only scratched the surface of the Assyrian mounds, and that the most ancient ruins of this most ancient people have not yet been reached. The Government not being disposed to afford more money, and the Museum not having funds for the purpose, it is evident that if we are to secure these valuable historical memorials, it must be the work of private enterprise. The project of a society for the purpose has met with the sanction and support of Prince Albert. Subscriptions to a large amount have already been contributed. We are glad to see that in the prospectus issued by the Assyrian Society, the object of the exploration is urged as having "especial reference to biblical illustration."

WHAT IS COAL ?-A somewhat curious trial has lately taken place at Edinburgh before the Jury court. The pro prietors of an estate rich in mineral productions had per mitted certain tenants to work it, on the condition of paying lime so wrought. The tenants, instead of working the fore a specified amount as lordship on the ironstone, coal, and shale abounding in gas, by the sale of which to the gasmentioned minerals, turned their attention to a bituminous makers they obtained large profits, a very small portion of seignorage. The proprietors have brought an action against which came to the proprietors in the name of lordship or the tenants, as having no right to meddle with the bitumi nous shale, as not being a coal. The damages were laid at 10,0007.

mineralogists of England and Scotland have given evidence The most eminent chemists, geologists, and on the subject, and great names are found on both sides of the question, whether this shale is a coal or not. As in the case of Mr. Hales's rocket mixture, of which it was disputed whether it could be called gunpowder or not, the present trial has been decided according to the meaning attached to the word "coal" in any mercantile transaction. The judge put aside the conflicting testimony of the savans, and left the decision to the common sense of the jury, who gave a verdict in favour of the leaseholders.

PARLIAMENTARY VOTING.-A new mode of taking the votes of the House of Commons was commenced just before its prorogation. Members no longer "go into the lobbies," and strangers are not "excluded from the galleries." The ayes and noes divide to the benches on the right and left of the Speaker's chair, the tellers reporting at the table as formerly.