progeny. The beetle grub is hairy and brown, and the perfect beetle (the species of which I have not yet ascertained) is black marked, with two cross waving lines of pure white. These grubs will not touch the perfect bee, and some for which I could not procure bee larvæ, lived without food for six months, remaining as plump and lively as when first taken from the bee cells which they had first invaded.

MEMORY OF BEES.-It is interesting to remark, that how far soever bees may wander from their hives (and a mile or two is not uncommon)-they always find their way home. According to the poetical creed, this is done memoriter by the insect retracing all its wanderings-a doctrine which Rogers, in his Pleasures of Memory, has prettily illustrated :

Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell?
Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell?
With conscious truth retrace the mazy clew
Of varied sweets, which charmed her as she flew.
Hail, Memory hail! thy universal reign

Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.

PART I.

Instead, however, of this tedious process of retracing their way by means of memory, bees uniformly fly from great distances directly to the hive, as straight as a ball from a musket, and with extreme rapidity. But in departing from the hive upon an excursion, they, for the most part begin by examining the flowers in their immediate neighbourhood. Bees, indeed, seem to possess so very little of the power of memory, that an individual may be seen to search the same blossom two or three

times in the course of a few minutes in utter forgetfulness of having already plundered it of its honey.

THE CHIFF-CHAFF.-The earliest migratory bird which we have observed arrive in spring, is the ChiffChaff (Sylvia hypolais), which may be heard in every patch of wood or copse near London, early in March, repeating its monotonous chaunt, as if it were calling its more tardy companions to hasten their migrative journeyings. Though there is certainly little music in its unvaried note; yet, from its association with the blowing of the primrose, the violet, and other early flowers, it becomes little less pleasing than the similar monotony of the cuckoo, inseparably associated with blossomed hawthorns, or the loud call of the Wryneck, which betokens the near approach of "the leafy month of June.”

APRIL.

THE MORNING AIR.-There is something in the morning air, that while it defies the penetration of our proud and shallow philosophy, adds brightness to the blood, freshness to life, and vigor to the whole frame: -the freshness of the lip, by the way, is, according to Dr. Marshal Hall, one of the surest marks of health. If ye would be well-therefore, if ye would have your heart dancing gladly, like the April breeze, and your blood flowing like an April brook-up with the lark— "the merry lark," as Shakspeare calls it, which is "the ploughman's clock" to warn him of the dawn; up and breakfast on the morning air-fresh with the odour of budding flowers and all the fragrance of the maiden spring; up from your nerve-destroying down-bed, and from the foul air pent within your close-drawn curtains, and with the sun, "walk o'er the dew of the far eastern hills." But we must defend the morning air from the aspersions of those who sit in their close airless studies and talk of the chilling dew and the unwholesome damps of the dawn. We have all the facts in our favour, that the fresh air of the morning is uniformly wholesome; and, having the facts, we pitch such shallow philosophy to fools who have nothing else for a foot-ball.

PERSECUTION OF SUPPOSED ENEMIES.-The attacks made by swallows and other small birds upon

hawks, shrikes, polecats, and indeed on all animals of prey, must have met the observation of almost every person, all the weakest and most helpless birds in a neighbourhood uniting in a body to drive the invaders away. I have somewhere met with an account of a similar attack made upon a hunting spider by flies, though we must look upon this as quite anomalous, for amongst thousands of these spiders, whose proceedings I have watched, I never observed such an Occurrence. But connected with such singular attacks of the weak upon the strong, a much more remarkable circumstance is frequently witnessed; for, passing over the cuckoo, who is persecuted by small birds, evidently because they mistake him for a hawk,* most night birds are attacked in the same way, whenever they make their appearance by day. We might, perhaps, refer this in the case of owls to the general principle, though owls seldom, I believe, prey upon birds, if they can procure mice and other small quadrupeds; but what are we to think of the night-jar (Nyctichelidon Europæus, RENNIE), which is subjected to similar persecution? This poor bird appears, indeed, to be the butt of innumerable mistakes in all quarters; for, though it feeds, like the bat, upon nocturnal moths and other night-flying insects, the small birds show, by the attacks they make upon it, that they believe it to prey upon them. The name also, which it has received in all languages of goutsucker (most absurdly continued by most recent naturalists in the term Caprimulgus), shows the opinion entertained of it by the vulgar. It is, however, as impossible for the night-jar to suck the teats of cattle,

*

See Insect Transformations, page 78.

(though most birds are fond of milk *), as it is for cats to suck the breath from sleeping infants, of which they are absurdly accused, inasmuch as the structure of their organs would baffle any such attempt.

RADIATED CLOUDS.-Even when the sky is serene, it is not uncommon to see one or more clouds, usually white, light, in form of streaks, in arch-formed curves, and directed to some opposite point of the horizon. This. sort of cloud is called a rayed or streak-cloud. The opposition may take place in two ways, either in the entire circle of the horizon, or in the half-circle. If the ray pass through the zenith, its extremities will necessarily stretch to points which are diametrically opposite in the entire circle. When there are several rays, they commonly converge in two opposite points in the entire circle of the horizon, and this group or system of rays is what I call a meteorological radiation. The point in which the rays become united together, whether real or supposed, may be called the converging point. It is real, if the rays are continuous; and supposed, if they are broken or interrupted. It is but seldom, however, that