Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed]

POETRY.-The Voice of Bells, 2. Bulwer Lytton's Character of Macaulay, 2. A Memory, 2. First Edition of Campbell's "Battle of Copenhagen," 53. Night, 54. Too Late, 55. The Elder's Daughter, 61.

SHORT ARTICLES.-English Lady of Rank the Wife of a Bedouin Chief, 26. Church's "Twilight in the Wilderness," 26. Dispute in the Academy of Sciences, 30. Burying in Cross Roads, 30. Cropsey's View on the Hudson, 60. Arsenic in Agricultural Plants, 62.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON.

For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded free of postage.

Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes. handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume.

ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers.

ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value.

THE VOICE OF BELLS.

BY PATRICK SCOTT, ESQ.

HARK! the voice of bells is sending
Welcome through the stricken air;
Loud welcome to the brave and fair
To the nuptial altar wending,
One-two-three! list the warning,
A wedding-day

Drives care away,

Let the world be glad this morning. Hark! again, with funeral toll,

Those metal tongues are swinging: Wherefore do ye fright my soul?

Oh! stop your mournful ringing. Nay-the brave man died contending For his outraged native isle:

And should we, hearing, sigh or smile When young life hath such an ending? One-two-three! list the warning, And think of earth As little worth,

For a soul hath pass'd this morning. She it was who just hath died;

Ile, 'mid the foeman's slaughter,
Perish'd distant from his bride
By all the Atlantic water.
Sigh or smile we at this story?

She, in little time, loved well

He, torn from dearest earth-ties, fell Wedded to immortal glory.

One-two-three! list the warning,
Some wear away
Life's idle day,

Some die nobly in the morning.
-Constitutional Press Magazine.

Part of an Article in Blackwood's Magazine. SIR BULWER LYTTON'S CHARACTER OF MACAULAY.

BY SIR BULWER LYTTON.

THE effects he studied by the words were made, More than the art with which the words were said.

Perhaps so great an orator was ne'er

So little of an actor; half the care
Giv'n to the speaking which ho gave the speech
Had raised his height beyond all living reach;
Ev'n as it was, a master's power he proved

the three tests-he taught, he charmed, he
moved.

compass one; whate'er their faults may be, it orators alone achieve the three.

in his youth, when strength grew doubly strong,

As the swift passion whirl'd its blaze along;
in riper years his blow less sharply fell,
Looser the muscle, tho' as round its swell;
The dithyram sobered to didactic flow,
And words as full of light had less of glow.
Take then his best and first the speaker view,
The bold broad front paled to the scholar's hue,
And eye abstracted in its still, clear blue.

m on the floor he sets his solid stand,
is his gesture, scarcely moves a hand;
and deep-mouthed, as from a cave pro-
found,

Comes his strong utterance with one burst of

sound,

Save where it splits into a strange, wild key,
Like hissing winds that struggle to be free.
And at the close, the emotions, too represt
By the curb'd action, o'erfatigue the breast,
And the voice breaks upon the captive car,
And by its failure, proves the rage sincere.
His style not essay, if you once admit
Speech as sense spoken, essay as sense writ;
Not essay-rather, argued declamation,
Prepared, 'tis true, but always as oration.
A royal cloquence, that paid, in state,
A ceremonious visit to debate.

As unlike Burke as mind could be to mind,
He took one view-the broadest sense could
find-

Never forsook it from the first to last,
And on that venture all his treasure cast.
Just as cach scene throughout a drama's plan
Unfolds the purpose which the first began,
His speaking dramatized one strong plain
thought,

To fuller light by each link'd sentence brought,
A home-truth deck'd-where, led but by the

[blocks in formation]

A SINGLE chord, struck by a careless hand, How strange that it should bring me back again

A melody of Home and Father-land,

Restore to memory words, and tone, and strain!

A tender accent, but a trick of words,

And I had almost heard her earnest voice: Strange how the color of the past accords With some faint shadow on our present joys! A passing glance, a clear eye seeking mine, I felt the hot blood rushing to my heart; So had she looked: but as I gazed, the sign Melted away, the stranger had no partNo part with her, no claim upon my love,

No sympathy to mark her as my own: My hopes are buried, funeral-dust above,

And dust below, a tomb all lichen-grown. Stay! it is coming back so clear and sweet, That wondrous dream of youth; that glowing

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

From The Edinburgh Review. monographs, in the publications by the Ray 1. On the Origin of Species by Means of Society, on the Cirripedia, Sub-classes LeNatural Selection, or the Preservation padida (1851), and Balanidæ (1854). Of of Favored Races in the Struggle for independent means, he has full command of Life. By Charles Darwin, M.A. 8vo. his time for the prosecution of original re

1859.

2. On the Tendency of Varieties to depart
Indefinitely from the original Type.
By Alfred Russel Wallace. (February,
1858.) Proceedings of the Linnæan
Society, August, 1858.
3. Buffon, Histoire de ses Travaux et de ses
Idées. Par P. Flourens, Sec. Perp.

de 1 Académie des Sciences. 12mo.
1846.

search: his tastes have led him to devote himself to Natural History; and those who enjoy his friendship and confidence are aware that the favorite subject of his observations and experiments for some years past has been the nature and origin of the socalled species of plants and animals. The octavo volume of upwards of five hundred 4. Contributions to the Natural History of pages which made its appearance towards the United States. By M. Agassiz. 4to. the end of the last year, has been received Vol. 1. (1. Essay on Classification.) 1857. and perused with avidity not only by the 5. On the Flora of Australia, etc. By Dr. professed naturalist, but by that far wider Joseph D. Hooker, F.R.S. (Introduc- intellectual class which now takes interest in tory Essay.) 4to. 1859. the higher generalizations of all the sciences. 6. Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy and the Philosophy of Crea-The same pleasing style which marked Mr. tion. By the Rev. Baden Powell. 12mo. Darwin's earliest work, and a certain artistic disposition and sequence of his principal arguments, have more closely recalled the attention of thinking men to the hypothesis of the inconstancy and transmutation of species, than had been done by the writings of previous advocates of similar views. Thus several, and perhaps the majority, of our younger naturalists have been seduced into the acceptance of the homopathic form 10. Palæontology; or a Systematic Sum- of the transmutative hypothesis now premary of Extinct Animals, etc. By sented to them by Mr. Darwin, under the Professor R. Owen. 8vo. 1860. phrase of "natural selection."

1855.

7. Hétérogénie, ou Traité de la Génération Spontanée. By Professor V. A. Pouchet. 8vo. Paris, 1859.

8. Recherches sur l'Archetype et les Homologies du Squelette Vertebré. Par Professor R. Owen. 8vo. Paris, 1855.

9. Address to the British Association, Leeds. By Professor R. Owen. 8vo. 1858.

Dr. Joseph Hooker, in his latest work, above cited, writes :

and Flora, I advanced certain general proposi "In the Introductory Essay to the New Zealtions as to the origin of species, which I refrained from endorsing as articles of my own creed; amongst others was the still prevalent doctrine that these are, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, created as such, and are immutable. In the present essay I shall advance the opposite

IN the works above cited the question of the origin, succession, and extinction of species is more or less treated of, but most fully and systematically by the accomplished naturalist who heads the list. Mr. Charles Darwin has long been favorably known, not merely to the Zoological but to the Literary World, by the charming style in which his original observations on a variety of natural phenomena are recorded in the volume as-hypothesis, that species are derivative and mutasigned to him in the narrative of the cir- ble, and this chiefly because, whatever opinions cumnavigatory voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, by the origin and variation of species, every candid a naturalist may have adopted with regard to Capt. Fitz Roy, F.R.S. Mr. Darwin earned mind must admit that the facts and arguments the good opinion of geologists by the happy upon which he has grounded his convictions re applications of his observations on coral quire revision, since the recent publication by reefs, made during that voyage, to the ex-inal reasonings and theories of Mr. Darwin and the Linnæan Society of the ingenious and origplanation of some of the phenomena of the Mr. Wallace."-P. ii. changes of level of the earth's crust. He took high rank amongst the original explorers of the minute organization of the invertebrate animals, upon the appearance of his

On the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, 8vo. 1842.

Mr. Darwin claims another convert in an older name of scientific note: in reference to the immutability of species, he tell us, "I have reason to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further reflec

tion, entertains grave doubts on this subject." For our own part, governed by the motto of the parent society for the promotion of natural knowledge, "nullius in verba," our attention was principally directed, in the first perusal of Mr. Darwin's work, to the direct observations of nature which seemed to be novel and original, and to the additional grounds, based on fact, on which a more lasting superstructure of the theory of the mutability of species might be raised. These observations, therefore, claim our notice before we proceed to discuss the general theory of the work.

""fourteen nests of that species and found a few slaves in all. Males and fertile females of the their proper communities, and have never been slave species (Formca fusca) are found only in observed in the nests of F. sanguinea. The slaves are black, and not above half the size of their red masters, so that the contrast in their appearance is very great. When the nest is slightly disturbed, the slaves occasionally come out, and, like their masters, are much agitated and defend the nest: when the nest is much disturbed and the larvæ and pupa are exposed, the slaves work energetically with their masters in carrying them away to a place of safety. Hence, it is clear, that the slaves feel quite at home. During the months of June and July, on three successive years, I have watched for many hours several nests in Surrey and Sussex, and never saw a slave either leave or enter a nest. During the present year, however, in the month of July (1859), I came across a community with an unusually large stock of slaves, and I observed a few slaves mingled with their masters leaving the nest, and marching along the same road to a tall Scotch fir-tree, twenty-five yards distant, which they ascended together, probably in search of aphides or cocci. According to Huber, who had ample opportunities for observation, in Switzerland, the slaves habitually work with their masters in making the nest, and they alone open and close the doors in the morn

No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin. In reference to the transitions of organs, and the probability of their conversion from one function to another, he states:

"Pedunculated cirripedes have two minute folds of skin, called by me the ovigerous frena, which serve, through the means of a sticky secretion, to retain the eggs until they are hatched within the sack. These cirripedes have no branchia, the whole surface of the body and sack, including the small frena, serving for res-ing and evening; and, as Huber expressly states, piration. The Balanidae or sessile cirripedes, on the other hand, have no ovigerous frena, the eggs lying loose at the bottom of the sack, in the well-enclosed shell; but they have large folded branchiæ. Now I think no one will dispute that the ovigerous frena in the one family are strictly homologous with the branchia of the other family; indeed, they graduate into each other."-P. 191.

their principal office is to search for aphides. Another day my attention was struck by about a score of the slave-makers haunting the same spot, and evidently not in search of food; they approached and were vigorously repulsed by an independent community of the slave species (F. fusca); sometimes as many as three of these ants clinging to the legs of the slave-making F. sanguinea. The latter ruthlessly killed their small opponents, and carried their dead bodies That is, a series of modifications are af- as food to their nest, twenty-nine yards distant; firmed to have been met with in different but they were prevented from getting any pupa species, changing a respiratory into an ovi- to rear as slaves. I then dug up a small parcel of the pupa of F. fusca from another nest, and gerous organ. Should this graduation of put them down on a bare spot near the place parts be confirmed, and the respiratory func- of combat; they were eagerly seized, and cartion of the folded membranes in Balanidæ ried off by the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, be determined, Mr. Darwin will have con-after all, they had been victorious in their late combat."-P. 221. tributed both an interesting observation, and a valuable discovery. But neither in the present work, nor in the two volumes published and illustrated at the cost of the Ray Society, are those relations of the folded membranes in the Balanidae with the heart or vascular system demonstrated, which could alone prove the respiratory function of such membranes.

Many other direct observations on the F. sanguinea of England are recounted, and are contrasted with those first recorded by Huber, relative to the slave-holding F. rufescens of Switzerland.

"Such are the facts, though they did not need confirmation by me in regard to the wonderful instinct of making slaves. Let it be observed what a contrast the instinctive habits of F. san

Mr. Darwin has by no means limited him-guinea present with those of the F. rufescens. self to dissections of dead animals, but has devoted much time to observation of the living. Desirous of testing the truth of the assertions respecting the slave-making ants (Formica Sanguinea), he opened

The latter does not build its own nest, does not determine its own migrations, does not collect itself: it is absolutely dependent on its numerfood for itself or its young, and cannot even feed ous slaves. F. sanguinea, on the other hand, possesses much fewer slaves, and in the early

absolutely impossible, from the extreme thinness of the little rhombic plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand in the opposed cells and push and bend the duc

easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it.

part of the summer extremely few. The masters determine when and where a new nest shall be formed, and when they migrate the masters carry the slaves. Both in Switzerland and England the slaves seem to have the exclusive care of the larvae, and the masters alone go on slave-tile and warm wax (which, as I have tried, is making expeditions. In Switzerland the slaves and masters work together, making and bringing materials for the nest: both, but chiefly the slaves, tend, and milk, as it may be called, their aphides; and thus both collect food for the community. In England the masters alone usually leave the nest to collect building materials and food for themselves, their slaves, and larvæ. So that the masters in this country receive much less service from their slaves than they do in Switzerland."-P. 223.

The instincts of the bee have received not less attention from Mr. Darwin than those of the ant; and he has also enriched this interesting part of natural history by new and original remarks. Desirous of testing the mechanical hypothesis of the formation of the hexagonal cell, out of an original cylindrical form, by pressure of surrounding cylinders, Mr. Darwin

a

"From the experiment of the ridge of vermillion wax, we can clearly see that if the bees were to build for themselves a thin wall of wax, they could make their cells of the proper shape, by standing at the proper distance from cach other, by excavating at the same rate, and by endeavoring to make equal spherical hollows, but never allowing the spheres to break into each other."-P. 230.

Mr. Darwin, while collecting objects of natural history in the rivers of Brazil, was surprised at the similarity of the fresh-water insects, shells, etc., and at the dissimilarity of the surrounding terrestrial beings, compared with the fauna of Great Britain, and he was led to ponder on this power, as it seemed, in fresh-water productions, of ranging widely. He offers many ingenious suggestions to account for the phenomena, and gives, what is of greater value, the following original observation and experiment :

"Two facts which I have observed-and no

"separated two combs, and put between them long, thick, square (rectangular?)' strip of wax; the bees instantly began to excavate minute circular pits in it; and as they deepened these little pits they made them wider and wider until they doubt many others remain to be observed-throw were converted into shallow basins, appearing to some light on this subject. When a duck sudthe eye perfectly true or parts of a sphere, and denly emerges from a pond covered with duckof about the diameter of a cell. It was most weed, I have twice seen these little plants adherinteresting to me to observe that wherever several ing to its back; and it has happened to me in bees had begun to excavate these basins near removing a little duckweed from one aquarium together, they had begun their work at such a to another, that I have quite unintentionally distance from each other, that by the time the stocked the one with fresh-water shells from the basins had acquired the above stated width (i.e. other. But another agency is perhaps more about the width of an ordinary cell), and were effectual: I suspended a duck's feet, which might in depth about one-sixth of the diameter of the represent those of a bird sleeping in a natural sphere of which they formed a part, the rims of pond, in an aquarium, where many ova of freshthe basins intersected or broke into each other. water shells were hatching; and I found that As soon as this occurred, the bees ceased to ex-numbers of the extremely minute and just cavate, and began to build up flat walls of wax on the lines of intersection between the basins, so that each hexagonal prism was built upon the festooned edge of a smooth basin, instead of on the straight edges of a three-sided pyramid as in the case of ordinary cells."-P. 228.

[blocks in formation]

"In one well-marked instance, I put the comb back into the hive, and allowed the bees to go on working for a short time, and again examined the cell, and I found that the rhombic plate had been completed, and had become perfectly flat; it was

In the remarkable volume recently published by Lord Brougham, entitled "Tracts, Mathematical and Physical," which have been produced by his lordship at various times from the year 1796 to the year 1858, will be found an excellent paper on the mathematical structure of bees' cells, read before the National Institute of France, by Lord Brougham, in the French language, in May, 1858. It is a scientific and literary curiosity.

hatched shells crawled on the feet, and clung to them so firmly that when taken out of the water they could not be jarred off, though at a somewhat more advanced age they would voluntarily drop off. These just-hatched molluscs, though aquatic in their nature, survived on the duck's feet, in damp air, from twelve to twenty hours; and in this length of time a duck or heron might fly at least six or seven hundred miles, and would be sure to alight on a pool or rivulet, if blown across sea to an oceanic island or to any other distant point."-P. 385.

The mud adhering to the feet of wading birds may serve to transmit species of aquatic plants far away from their native streams.

"I do not believe (writes Mr. Darwin) that botanists are aware how charged the mud of ponds is with seeds. I have tried several little experiments, but will here give only the most striking case. I took, in February, three tablespoonfuls of mud from three different points beneath the water, on the edge of a little pond.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »