dinary size had been occasionally disinterred, without excit ing more than temporary curiosity, or leading to anything better than wild and unsatisfactory speculation."

2. Some persons regarded them as the relics of a gigantic race of men, of whose existence no other traces remained; others, and a more rational party, concluded that they were the bones of an animal still in existence, or that they belonged to a large variety of the well known elephant species. The inquiry generally ceased, when the novelty of the discovery passed away.

3. But when situations were further explored, and the bones were procured in greater abundance, and the curiosity of naturalists was awakened, these relics were eagerly sought for, until nearly a whole skeleton was obtained, the fact satisfactorily established that these bones belonged to a peculiar race never before known, and, what is still more surprising, that the whole race was utterly extinct.

4. No skeleton has been obtained more perfect, than the one in the Philadelphia Museum, which was found near Newburg, on the Hudson river, about sixty-seven miles above the city of New York.

5. In this, as in all the individuals discovered, the top of the head was so far decayed and destroyed, as to prevent the least idea being formed as to its figure or elevation; although the analogy in its size and general configuration, might serve to produce the inference, that the animal was, in other respects, most nearly allied to the elephant.

6. Some idea of the enormous size of this animal may be formed from the magnitude of the skeleton, and the different bones that compose it. The skeleton to which we have

NOTES. -a As early as 1712 bones were found on the Hudson; in 1739, on the Ohio. b This skeleton was discovered in a swamp, in 1801, several feet under ground, and procured by Mr. C. W. Peale, at an expense of five thousand dollars. e Philadelphia Muse'um; a collection of objects of natural history, in the city of Philadelphia. It was founded by Charles Wilson Peale, and is the most extensive collection, of the kind, in America.

alluded, measures eighteen feet in length, and eleven feet and five inches in height. The length of the shoulder-blade is three feet and one inch, and that of the upper bone of the fore leg, two feet and ten inches.

7. The greatest circumference of this bone is three feet two inches and a half, and its smallest part measures one foot five inches around. The lower bone is proportionally massive. The thigh bone is three feet seven inches long, and two feet in circumference, at the middle of the shaft.

8. The under jaw is remarkable for its massiveness and solidity, and the form of it is peculiar to this animal. It is two feet ten inches long, and weighs sixty-three and a half pounds. The tusks, which are attached to the upper jaw, are ten feet seven inches long, measuring from the base to the tip and following the outside of the curvature, and seven inches and three quarters in diameter, in the largest part.

9. We cannot avoid reflecting on the time, when this huge frame was clothed with its peculiar integuments, and moved by appropriate muscles; when the mighty heart dashed forth its torrents of blood through vessels of enormous caliber, and the mastodon strode along in supreme dominion over every other tenant of the wilderness.

10. However we examine what is left us, we cannot help feeling that this animal must have been endowed with a strength exceeding that of other quadrupeds, as much as it exceeds them in size; and looking at its ponderous jaws, armed with teeth peculiarly formed for the most effectual crushing of the firmest substances, we are assured that its life could only be supported by the consumption of vast quantities of food.

11. Enormous as were these creatures during life, and endowed with faculties proportioned to the bulk of their frames, the whole race has been extinct for ages. No tradition nor human record of their existence has been saved, and, but for the accidental preservation of a comparatively few bones, we should never have dreamed that a creature of so vast size

and strength once existed, nor could we have believed that such a race had been extinguished forever.

12. Such, however, is the fact. The entire race of the mastodon has been utterly destroyed, leaving nothing but the mighty wreck of their skeletons, to testify that they once were among the living occupants of this land.

QUESTIONS. By what name is the mastodon sometimes improperly called? What is properly the mammoth? 1. Where were bones of extraordinary size occasionally found? 1. Where is the Hudson river? 1. Where the Ohio river? 1. How early were bones of the mastodon found on the Hudson and Ohio rivers? 2. What did the people suppose them to be? 3. What did naturalists prove them to be? 4. Where is the most perfect skeleton of the mastodon to be seen? 4. Where was it found? 4. What did it cost? 4. What is the Philadelphia Museum? 5. What animal did the mastodon most resemble? 6. What are the height and length of the skele. ton in the Philadelphia Museum? 8. What is the length of the tusks? 11. Does the mastodon now exist?

LESSON XXXI.
Spell and Define.

1. Garland, a wreath of flowers.

3. Hum'drum, dull, stupid.

4. Re-spond'ed, answered.

5. Quer'u-lous, complaining.

5. O'ri-ole, a bird of the thrush kind.

6. Thrush, a singing bird of various species.

6. Chat'ter-ing, uttering rapid sounds.

7. Dah'lia, the flower of a plant.
7. Maize, Indian corn.

8. Mim'ic-ry, ludicrous imitation.
9. Car'a-van, a company of travelers.
10. Min'a-ret, a slender turret.
10. Mos'lem, Mohammedan.

11. Bulbul, the Persian nightingale. 12. Ru'ral, pertaining to the country.

ERRORS.1. Sud'dn for sud'den; 5. wran for wren; 5. teu for too; 5. spil'ed for spoiled; 6. mar'tings for martins; 6. chart'ter-ing for chat'ter-ing; 7. day'li-a for dah'lia; 9. noight for night; 10. purses for pierces; 11. In'di-un for In'dian; 11. srill for shrill.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

[Before reading this piece, let the pupil repeat the rule in Exercise III., P. 75.]

1. NOVEMBER came on with an eye severe,

And his stormy language was hoarse to hear;

And the glittering garland of brown and red,

Which he wreathed for a while round the forest's head,

NOTE. - See November, p. 228, note c.

With a sudden anger he rent away,

And all was cheerless, and bare, and gray.

2. Then the houseless grasshopper told his woes,

And the humming-bird sent forth a wail for the rose,
And the spider, that weaver of cunning so deep,
Rolled himself up in a ball to sleep;

And the cricket his merry horn laid by

On the shelf, with the pipe of the dragon-fly.

3. Soon the birds were heard, at the morning prime,
Consulting of flight to a warmer clime."

"Let us go! let us go!" said the bright-winged jay;
And his gay spouse sang from a rocking spray,
"I am tired to death of this humdrum tree,
I'll go if 't is only the world to see."

4. "Will you go?" asked the robin, "my only love?"
And a tender strain from the leafless grove
Responded, "Wherever your lot is cast,
Mid summer skies or northern blast,

I am still at your side your heart to cheer,
Though dear is our nest in the thicket here."

5. "I am ready to go," cried the querulous wren,
"From the hateful homes of these northern men;
My throat is sore, and my feet are blue;

I fear I have caught the consumption too."
And the oriole told, with a flashing eye,
How his plumage was spoiled by this frosty sky.

6. Then up went the thrush with a trumpet call,

And the martins came forth from their box on the wall,

NOTE.a Most birds, at the approach of winter, migrate to a warmer climate in the south, and do not conceal themselves in the mud or trees, as is sometimes supposed.

And the owlets peeped out from their secret bower,
And the swallows convened on the old church tower,
And the council of blackbirds was long and loud,
Chattering and flying from tree to cloud.

7. "The dahlia is dead on her throne," said they
"And we saw the butterfly cold as clay;
Not a berry is found on the russet plains,
Not a kernel of ripened maize remains;
Every worm is hid; -shall we longer stay
To be wasted with famine? Away! away!"

8. But what a strange clamor, on elm and oak,
From a bevy of brown-coated mocking-birds, broke!
The theme of each separate speaker they told
In a shrill report, with such mimicry bold,
That the eloquent orators started to hear
Their own true echo, so wild and clear.

9. Then tribe after tribe, with its leader fair,

Swept off through the fathomless depths of air.
Who marketh their course to the tropics bright?
Who nerveth their wing for its weary flight?
Who guideth that caravan's trackless way
By the star at night and the cloud by day?

10. Some spread o'er the waters a daring wing,
In the isles of the southern sea to sing,
Or where the minaret, towering high,
Pierces the blue of the Moslem sky,

Or mid the harem's haunts of fear

Their lodges to build and their nurslings rear.

NOTES. -a God has probably created birds with a delicate sensibility to atmos pheric changes, so that they know when they are approaching a warmer climate, by their feelings.