least in immediate communication with | been most probably on a visit to his store this district, all the labours of the animal of nuts, acorns, and beech mast, for a are pursued. It consists of a habitation meal. The squirrel does not pass the or fortress, from which extends the high winter in a state of hybernation, but clad road by which the animal reaches the in warm fur braves its severity. Inopposite extremity of the encampment, stinct-directed he accumulates various and of various galleries or excavations little magazines of food, snugly hidden, opening into this road, which it is con- lest the thievish jay should discover and tinually extending in search of food, pilfer his treasure. At this season they and which, in fact, constitute its hunting are his great, if not entire source of ground." The fortress is formed under dependence; and who that finds in some a large raised hillock. These animals chink or cranny, the store thus wisely seldom intrude upon each other's hunt- (so to speak) accumulated, would scatter ing ground; but should two meet in the it, and rob the Ariel of the woods of his same excavation, one must retreat, or a just possession ? fierce battle ensues, which proves fatal to the weaker of the combatants. In the mole the appetite of hunger amounts to frenzy, and hence, with the exception of about six hours' rest in the middle of the day, it is incessantly on the chase. Worms constitute its staple food, which it pursues, during the frosts of winter, to their deepest retreats; nevertheless, it also eats the larvæ of coleopterous insects; and even mice, birds, lizards, and frogs. But surely you are ready to say, Is it not in danger of being drowned, during the floods of February, and indeed of other months? Not at all. In addition to its excellences as a miner by trade, it is a most admirable swimmer; and for the act of swimming its hands and feet are as well adapted as for excavating. "Surprised in its encampment," says the writer referred to, by the floods, it seeks its safety by this means; and, a friend of mine, residing at Waltham Abbey, assures me, that he has seen moles swimming very featly, when the marshes of that neighbourhood have been inundated. But it is not only when driven to it, as a means of escape from danger, that it employs this mode of travelling. It will not hesitate to cross a brook, or even a broad river, to change its hunting ground, or to emigrate from a district which has ceased to yield it sufficient nourishment; and occasionally it would appear to take the water merely for the purpose of enjoying the luxury of a bath."-Bell's Brit. Quad. The mole has his enemies, and man amongst the number. The molecatcher has already begun to set his traps.

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Let us pass through the wood. The squirrel is very busy and alert; how nimbly he ascends the trunk of that fine beech tree; how soon he is hidden among the topmost branches. He has

The hybernating animals are begining to bestir themselves. The dormouse is roused by the fitful sunshine to peep forth and take a little food; for though it passes the severer months in a state of torpidity, it awakens when a warmer day than usual intervenes; and during the present month, a sunshiny day is almost sure to call it from its dormitory; but it will return to its repose when the sun begins to decline, and the air becomes again chilly and depressing. The hedgehog, however, sleeps more soundly, and will not yet appear; rolled up in a compact ball, and invested with moss and leaves, beneath the covert of some brake, or under the roots of some old hollow tree, it waits for the warmer months to call forth the "creeping things" on which it feeds, before its profound trance will pass away. The hedgehog stores up no food, indeed it cannot, from the very nature of its food, (slugs, snails, insects, lizards, etc.,) and therefore, were it to awake, it would awake to famish: there is therefore wisdom and mercy in the law which ordains its late hybernation.

Strange to say, the common bat (Vespertilio pipistrellus) occasionally appears on the wing, even during the present month; and still more frequently during March. This species is the latest and earliest on the wing of the British bats, having been seen alert and flying even as late as December. A warm sunshiny day is sure to rouse it.

Its food consists of gnats, which the same warm sunshine also calls forth, and thus it awakes to food prepared as it were for its reception. The final retirement of this species of bat "does not depend," says Mr. Bell, "exclusively upon temperature; for although before the severe frosts set in, they continue to fly even when it is below the freezing point, they do not

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this is continued through the whole season of incubation."

again appear until the time above mentioned, (March, but often even earlier,) notwithstanding the thermometer may The thrush is loud in song; clear, have often arisen considerably above fifty bold, and varied are his notes: nor is degrees Fahr. This peculiarity is easy the blackbird silent. Listen to those of solution. The fondness of the animal two sharp notes, reiterated with harsh for different species of gnats has been emphasis; there flits the bird that uttered observed even from the earliest period, them among the willows by the brook; and from the diminutive size of the it is the marsh titmouse, (Parus paluspipistrelle (common bat,) it is probable tris,) one of our early breeders: it that these little insects constitute its builds in the holes of pollard willows, principal food. These, and many other and the stumps of trees near its favourite dipterous insects, after having disap-haunts; and its nest is made of moss, peared during the ungenial fogs and mixed with the fine soft down which rains of the close of the autumn, often clothes the seeds of the willow. During make their appearance again in smaller the winter this active little bird associates numbers, on every fine warm day, until with others of its species in small famithe severe cold of the depth of winter lies, these are now breaking up, for the finally destroys the greater part of them. pairing season is at hand. The same impulse of hunger equally accounts for the appearance of the pipistrelle in the daytime, at this period of the year; as it is only at that time that the temperature is sufficiently elevated to summon into temporary activity its insect food."

The feathered tribes are now in activity; the raven is preparing his nest, and so is the crow; and the rook is not behind them. How full of bustle and animation is the rookery! Some are bringing sticks and twigs, with which to repair their nests, which, thus patched up, form the cradle for many a successive generation; some are contending for the possession of a nest to which two parties lay claim; we suspect the law of might is the law of right with them. Some, too, are absolutely robbing their neighbours, despoiling their nests, for the sake of furnishing their own with little pains and labour. A rookery is a picture of human society, and presents, at this season, a scene of turmoil, squabbling, and misrule. In a little time, however, the various litigations among the contending parties will subside. "Rooks," says Gilbert White, are continually fighting and pulling each other's nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close community; and yet, if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished at once." "Some unhappy pairs are not suffered to finish any nests till the rest have completed their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks have finished their nests, the males begin to feed the females, and

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There stands a heron in the flooded brook, immovable, with its neck bent, and drawn in between its shoulders; its beak ready to strike, and its eye intent upon the water, watching for some unwary fish that may come within its reach. Our approach has disturbed it; away it sails on its ample wings, to some more sequestered spot. During the winter these birds roam far and wide in search of open water; but at the latter end of this month the scattered flock draw gradually towards their heronry; and numbers may be seen collected together, as if on a consultation previous to the great business of the spring. In some respects a heronry resembles a rookery; these birds building in company together on the highest trees; their nests are made of sticks lined with wool, or other soft materials, and are large and flat, and often in contact with each other on the same branch, or tree.

Our winter birds of passage, are now beginning to move northwards, files of wild geese may be seen high in the heavens; and many of the birds, which were driven from the inland parts of the country to the coast, are now beginning to return. Nevertheless, if severe weather comes on, they retrace their way. The severe February of 1838 was rendered remarkable from the number of wild swans, by which various parts of this kingdom were visited. In the Magazine of Natural History, for 1838, p. 333, is the following communication from a correspondent at Blackburn, Lancashire: The present dreadfully severe weather has driven to the estuary of, and even high up the river Ribble, a flock of wild swans, originally twenty-seven in

Vegetation has made rapid advances, and several plants and shrubs are in blossom. Of these we may count the barren strawberry, (Fragaria sterilis ;) the butcher's broom, (Ruscus aculeatus ;) the coltsfoot, (Tussilago farfara;) the daffodil, the sweet violet, and the snowdrop. The filbert, and the willow, too, hang out their flowers; and the yew puts on a greener tint, and appears in blossom.

number. The capture of four of these | It is the brimstone butterfly, (Gonephas come within my own observation; teryx rhamni,) which precedes its race, the first was shot upwards of twenty and may be regarded as their harbinger. miles from the mouth of the river, on Here, too, is a film of gossamer, an inFebruary 7. The second was shot dex that some of the spiders are already near Walton-le-Dale, about two miles beginning to throw out their floating up the Ribble, above Preston; this being lines,-silken streamers. shot by a farmer, the Goth actually had it plucked and roasted! The third was shot near Clitheroe, still higher up the river. The fourth bird came into my possession, February 17, having been killed near the embouchure of the river two days before." During the same month, many specimens of wild swans were shot on the Thames, and in the neighbourhood of London, which we had an opportunity of seeing. It is remarkable, that in the same month, the year before, after a severe storm of wind, a stormy petrel (Thalassidroma pelagica) was picked up on Preston moor alive, but completely exhausted; it survived its capture two days, and would, most probably, have recovered; but was killed for the purpose of mounting. The occurrence of this oceanic bird, inland, is very rare; but sea gulls are often driven by the winds to a considerable distance from the shore.

Let us then inquire into some of the phenomena resulting from the renewed activity of vegetable life. One great result is the disengagement of oxygen, effected by the sap circulating in the leaves, when exposed to the action of light, and in the decomposition of the carbonic acid gas, brought to the leaves by the sap, or else obtained by absorption from the surrounding atmosphere. The disengagement of oxygen, and the retention of carbon, an essential ingredient in the altered sap-essential to the nutrition and growth of plants; the reverse of what obtains in the aeration of the blood of animals, to whom oxygen is the great pabulum vite, is wonderful and interesting. Plants, therefore, nourish animals in more ways than one. It is in the green substance of leaves, the lungs of plants, that this chemical decomposition of carbonic acid is effected. "The remarkable discovery," says Dr. Roget, "that oxygen is exhaled from the leaves of plants during the day-time, was made by the great founder of pneumatic chemistry, Dr. Priestley: to Sennebier we are indebted for the first observation that the presence of carbonic acid is required for the disengagement of oxygen in this process, and that the oxygen is derived from the decomposition of the carbonic acid; and these latter facts have since been fully established by the researches of Mr. Woodhouse of Pennsylvania, and M. Theodore de Saussure and Mr. Palmer. They are proved in a very satisfactory manner by the following experiment of De Candolle. Two glass jars were inverted over the same waterbath; the one filled with carbonic acid gas, the other filled with water containing See yonder a butterfly on the wing! a sprig of mint; the jars communicating

Many of our native birds pair this month, besides those already noticed; as the thrush, the missel thrush, the red grouse, the partridge, the domestic pigeon; and towards its close, the yellow hammer, the goldfinch, and the ringdove, (Columba palumbus) the largest of the European wild pigeons.

During the present month, many of the reptile tribes will awake from their repose to activity. The viper (V. berus) | crawls forth to enjoy the sunshine. The ditches resound with the hoarse deep croak of the frog, and the masses of eggs, or spawn which the female deposits may be observed in great abundance. From those eggs spring a tadpole progeny; a truly aquatic race, with branchiæ, or organs of respiration, adapted to the fluid in which they as yet exclusively live; and with a rudder-like tail, their only organ of progressive motion. In a few weeks, however, the limbs will begin to be developed, the branchia will be obliterated, the lungs will expand, the tail vanish, and the metamorphosis will end by these little creatures abandoning the water, and betaking themselves to the moist meadows and fields, in quest of food.

The conversation was again interrupted by an application for a ticket of admission |