out the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart - Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! CHARLES WESLEY CHARLES WESLEY, an English clergyman and poet. Born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, England, December 18, 1708; died in London, March 29, 1788. Author of many hymns in universal use. JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL JESUS, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high: Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on thee; Still support and comfort me: With the shadow of thy wing. Plenteous grace with thee is found, LOVE DIVINE, ALL LOVE EXCELLING Joy of heaven, to earth come down! Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit Let us all in thee inherit, Let us find thy promised rest; Come, Almighty to deliver. Let us all thy grace receive; Never more thy temples leave. Finish then thy new creation, Pure and spotless let us be: Let us see thy great salvation, Till in heaven we take our place: GILBERT WHITE GILBERT WHITE. An English clergyman and naturalist. Born at Selborne, July 18, 1720; died there, June 20, 1793. Author of "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne," in 1789. Also, "The Naturalist's Calendar, with Observations in Various Branches of Natural History." White was one of the earliest Englishmen who sought to describe outdoor life and the current aspects of nature. His "Selborne" has been frequently reprinted. (From "THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE") TO THE HONORABLE DAINES BARRINGTON April 12, 1772. DEAR SIR: While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its hibernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part of its behavior ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it retires: through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude! I am, etc., etc. P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica. TO THE HONORABLE DAINES BARRINGTON SELBORNE, Jan. 29, 1774. DEAR SIR: The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have remarked from many years' observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier; and, in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early in February. It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes and mill-ponds; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more in favor of hiding than migration; since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to its hibernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or two only to warmer latitudes. The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters; and so she did in Virgil's time: 66 ... Antè Garrula quàm tignis nidos suspendat hirundo." In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English-built: in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and galleries, and open halls. Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place; as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder. Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render it tough and permanent; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish: this nest is lined |