take as examples in point the common earth-worm and the leech. The worm is, perhaps, not strictly speaking a truly hybernating creature. In sunny garden-borders it seldom plunges very deep, and sometimes even crawls on the surface; of course we are speaking of winter, but in open meadows and pasture lands the case is somewhat different. As the surface becomes ice-bound, the worm plunges deeper and deeper into the subsoil, and bores, as we have ourselves seen, into the first layer of clay, three feet or more from the alluvium. The leech, as the lake or pond becomes frozen, plunges into the soft mud, and there burying itself becomes quite torpid, and so remains till the ice is dissolved and the temperature of the water elevated. We must not exclude plants from the catalogue of vitalized beings that hybernate. Every bud wrapped up in its envelope, the germ of future leaves and flowers, remains during the winter in a state of torpidity; the circulation of the sap, as is the case with the blood of the hybernating hedgehog, dormouse, or marmot, either ceases to circulate, or circulates with such feebleness and so slowly that it may be said to be stopped. Our bulbous roots, as those of the lily, the tulip, and others, experience a periodical state of hybernation, and, as we find among the higher orders of animated nature, manifest the return of the vital energy, when the temperature is even lower than it was when this condition was assumed.

Thus then is hybernation one of the protective means by which the vital principle is kept, as a latent spark, from extinction; a spark awaiting only favourable circumstances to glow into a flame. It is on this principle that the seeds of plants, under peculiar circumstances, may continue dormant for years and ultimately germinate.

It is natural to pass from hybernation to migration. Numerous birds, instinct-impelled and instinct-guided, acting from an impulse which, unknown to themselves and unreflected upon, influences their actions, display habits of regular and periodical migration. In spring the swallow and the nightingale, numerous slender-billed warblers, and among gallinaceous birds the quail, visit our islands and Central Europe, having left their winter quarters in Southern Europe or Asia, Northern and even Central Africa. On the contrary, various other birds, and especially water-fowl, which in our open rivers, and along the margin of our creeks and bays, find sustenance during winter, depart in spring for the now-opening regions within the polar circle. Migration is always performed by regular stages, generally during the night,

and as a common rule by flocks associated into vast bodies, and acting in concert. The males, in a phalanx by themselves, generally precede the females, and, scattering themselves on their arrival, select their circumscribed territory, and utter their call-notes, or song of invitation. This is remarkably apparent in the case of the nightingale and the quail. Hence the former on its arrival is easily trapped by the bird-catcher; and on the Continent the males of the quail are caught by hundreds, being lured by means of a pipe imitating the answering voice of the female. In the shops of the London poulterers, very few female quails are to be seen in the low cages, crowded with prisoners awaiting in due order their fatal destiny. Some birds, perhaps more than we can positively determine, visit their old home, repair their old nests, or build new ones closely adjacent. The swallow and the house-martin may be cited as prominent examples. This fact adds not a little to the interest which attaches to these welcome tenants of the farmer's homestead, of the eaves and chimney of the rustic cottage, of the turrets of the castle, or the abbey's walls, towers, and buttresses. From the earliest ages the return of the swallow has ever been hailed with pleasure. It has been a wanderer in an unknown clime, it tells us of spring, of sunshine, and of flowers. It has been sung by poets from those of Greece to the bards of modern days.

Anacreon, in allusion to the house-martin (Hirundo urbica),

says:

"He comes! he comes! who loves to bear
Soft sunny hours and seasons fair;

The swallow hither comes to rest

His sable wings and snowy breast."

Hurdis utters the following:

"I delight to see

How suddenly he skims the glassy pool,
How quaintly dips, and with an arrow's speed
Whisks by. I love to be awake and hear

His morning song, twittered to dawning day."

From the swallow twittering on the eaves, or repairing her claybuilt nest, our attention is easily diverted to the feathered tenants of the farmyard: pleasing is the sight. True it is that the notes of these birds, that wait upon our lares, and "gather round the hospitable door," are shrill and harsh, individually considered, but they blend with the spring gale and the song of the thrush and blackbird into one harmonious whole. The farmer's wife has now much to attend to; the poultry are alert, and the laying-time of the hens has fairly

commenced, and oft and anon is heard the loud chuckle repeated by a whole bevy announcing the deposit of an egg. Geese and ducks are either laying or are sitting upon their eggs, and the turkey cock struts and gobbles with renovated energy. In the dovecot, the pigeons are incubating, some are even feeding their nestlings; and the proud males, with inflated crops, are strutting about on the roof, and reiterating their deep, hoarse, cooing tones of courtship. Quiet, homebred, yet congenial with our best feelings are these rural sights and sounds, the charms of the country, and among the characteristics of spring. The ploughman is at work, the rooks are busy in his train; so, in the vicinity of the seashore, or the wide mouth of the rivers, are flocks of gulls, all intent upon clearing the ground of larvæ. It is full spring; "the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." Our spring visitors have all arrived; and every creature of late dormant, and in a state of hybernation, is roused into full activity.

[To be continued.]

W. M.

BREATHINGS OF SPRING.

WHAT wakest thou, Spring? Sweet voices in the woods,
And reed-like echoes, that have long been mute,

Thou bringest back, to fill the solitudes,

The lark's clear pipe, the cuckoo's viewless flute,
Whose tone seems breathing mournfulness or glee
E'en as our hearts may be!

And flowers-the fairy-peopled world of flowers!
Thou from the dust hast set that glory free,
Colouring the cowslip with the sunny hours,
And pencilling the anemone :

Silent they seem, yet each to thoughtful eye
Glows with mute poesy.

HEMANS.

NOTHING hinders the constant agreement of people who live together, but mere vanity-a secret insisting upon what they think their merit, or dignity, and inward expectation of such an overmeasure of deference and regard, as answers to their own extravagant false scale, and which nobody can pay, because none but themselves can tell readily to what pitch it amounts.-POPE.

EGEDE THE MISSIONARY; OR, SCENES IN
GREENLAND.-No. IX.

THE WHALE FISHERY.

"Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me

As I gaze upon the sea!

All the old romantic legends,

All my dreams come back to me."

LONGFELLOW.

THE tedious long winter passed away at last with its monotonous occupations.

Egede, who was looked upon by the Greenlanders as a powerful Augehop, used all the means in his power to instruct and convert the heathen. To illustrate those Scripture subjects, of which he had no pictures, he used to draw sketches himself in chalks, as he found his teaching prospered much more when he could explain it by something visible. He also made great use of the few Greenland words he knew.

They soon learnt to understand the doctrine of a future life, as they had some idea, though it was but a faint one, of the immortality of the soul. They thought that those departed souls who went to heaven, led a very happy life there, one of the delights being to plentifully cut off seals' heads.

When the aurora borealis shone very brightly, they expected that those who had died, and whose spirits had gone up on high, were amusing themselves in playing at ball with each other, that being a very favourite game with them, in the moonlight winter nights.

They said, too, that when the moon set, it went down either into the sea or under the earth, to snap at seals and other animals, and come up refreshed.

"What nonsense!" said Kilterik the sailor, on hearing these fables. "How could one have believed that the Greenlanders, who can catch fish and wild animals so cunningly, could be so ridiculously stupid about other things?"

"Kilterik,” replied Egede, "we know many other instances of inconsistent ignorance and folly, where there has not been the light of Christianity to guide man's intellect. Have you not heard of the Egyptians of old, and of their wise magic? Yet they had an ox for their god. Do you not know about the wonder

ful works of the Greeks and Romans? Have you not heard of their writings? of their works of art? and yet they believed in gods who were never at peace one with the other, according to their fabulous creed !"

Egede then endeavoured to make himself acquainted with the history of the Augehoper and other superstitions, which he did without much difficulty.

Two cures which he had attempted on the Greenlanders were happily crowned with great success, and served to add to the respect paid to him by the ignorant natives. Once he restored the eyes of a man nearly blind by bathing them with strong brandy; and afterwards he cured one in a high fever by bathing his head in oil of turpentine, and giving him drops of it mixed with wine to drink. By these remedies he effected two speedy

cures.

But the more intimate he became with the Greenlanders, so much the more discontented were his companions; and at last a conspiracy was formed against him, at the head of which were the secretary and Kilterik himself.

When the spring came, which in this country does not begin till the month of May, a white sail was visible in the distance, apparently bound to the north for the whale fishery. At the sight of this, the sailors felt an increasing desire to leave their present abode, and to follow the example before them: as the swallow desires to return to her nest, so they had a longing to go to the whale fishery.

"Oh, your reverence," said Kilterik to Egede, "are we to remain idle here all the time and let those Dutch cheesemongers be beforehand with us in the whale fishery? Are we to return to our country with empty casks?"

These and similar speeches which the secretary and others were for ever making to him, at last determined the pastor to give his consent to a crusade against the leviathan of the Arctic Ocean. But as they deemed it advisable not to risk their vessel, 'The Hope,' on such an expedition, it was resolved to make use of the sloop, taking some with them who were accustomed to the whale fisheries.

By this means, also, Egede hoped to be able to gain a clearer insight into the limits of Greenland and its inhabitants, as they would be obliged to keep along the coast.

The day at length came when the sloop with all its belongings were ready to start.