remarked here, that, in viewing objects with a telescope of this kind, it is not the object itself, but its image A'ƒB', that is seen. Having thus briefly explained the chief properties of the astronomical telescope, we shall, under the bead of next month, offer a few remarks relative to the apparatus attached to it for the purpose of rendering the observations more complete and accurate than they could be made with the instrument in the simple state in which it has been described. [To be continued.] The Naturalist's Diary For FEBRUARY 1823. The sounding way Is hard and hoar; crystalline dew congealed No youths and damsels trip the choral sound The banks of rills, which, grating harsh in strife GLOVER. 6 THIS is an exact and beautiful description of the month of FFBRUARY, as it was in the time of the poet; and, although only a vivid picture of auld lang syne,' we do not despair of again seeing an original English winter with which it may be compared. But even this, with all its severity, cannot be thought of for a moment, when we direct our view to our adventurous countrymen, who now experience all the rigours of a second ARCTIC WINTER, and whose safe return to Albion must be the ardent wish and earnest prayer of every Englishman! Wild scenes of WINTER! what can you disclose E Can frozen grandeur, snows, or selid floods, Where tempests roar and sparkling surges foam. N. Georgia Gazette. In this and the following month tom-tits are seen hanging on the eaves of barns and thatched outhouses, particularly if the weather be snowy and severe. It is difficult to comprehend by what means many of our small and insectivorous birds are preserved during some of our hard and long winters, unless they have powers of abstinence greater than we are sensible of. The little blue tom-tit (parus cæruleus) more frequently perishes in severe winters than any bird that we are acquainted with: they lay many eggs, and numbers are thus produced to supply the annual waste: he will pick a bone in our yards with great adroitness, or scraps of meat at the butcher's stall, but this seems rather the result of necessity than of choice; for when other food becomes attainable, he still may procure meat. The chief sustenance of the tom-tit is insects, which he will hunt out with indefatigable perseverance, and draw from their asylums by many stratagems: he peeps into the nail-holes of our walls for the spider and the chrysalis of the cabbage butterfly; yet a supply of such food is very precarious, and always, in the winter season, of difficult attainment; consequently a great mortality ensues. This bird roosts under the eaves and in the little holes of our hay-stacks, where we often find him dead, killed by hunger or cold, or both conjointly: In chinks and holes Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, And this poor little animal, besides, has the misfortune, with many others equally inoffensive, to be included in the catalogue of injurious birds, rewards being given for its destruction. We have seen, in the churchwardens' charges for a very small parish, money paid for seventeen dozen of tom-tits' heads,' in one year. In the course of this month all nature begins, as it were, to prepare for its revivification; and animate and inanimate nature seem to vie with each other in opening the way to spring. About the 4th or 5th, the woodlark (alauda arborea), one of our earliest and sweetest songsters, renews his note; the thrush sings, and the yellow-hammer is heard; the chaffinch sings, and the readbreast continues to warble. The ROBIN. 'Twas winter, and the icy scene Gleamed with the rosy tint of morn ; When at my window-sill appeared Upon his downy breast he wore A welcome visitor was he, For him my window-sill was spread, With tributes to his minstrelsy, -Some scattered crumbs of hoarded bread: And much I loved my little guest, I loved the bird with crimson breast, 1 But winter came with sternest frown, Now 'neath the moss of yonder mound, Upon the bird of crimson breast. E. Rooks (corvus frugilegus) now revisit their breeding-trees and arrange the stations of their future nests; an important business, attended with great bickering and contention, the warfare of the rookery continuing till the females are settled on their eggs. The regularity observed by these creatures in their returns from the morning excursion is admirable; and they who have an opportunity of attending to them will find it regulated, in regard to time, with great precision, though they often feed at many miles distant from their roost. In calm evenings they return in large bodies, high in the air, with a steady, quiet motion; at other times they scud away near the earth in small parties, on rapid wing, influenced probably by the state of the atmosphere, though it does not appear to indicate any certain condition or change. The daw (a bird probably on the increase) mingles with them, and, thus united, they constitute a large body. But the rook itself has probably of late years decreased in numbers: their haunts have been disturbed by the changes in our manners and ideas; our old-fashioned halls' are modernized; perhaps the dull aunts' do not now exist,-and the habitations of the croaking rooks' are cut down at a hint from the timber-merchant. In some counties very few rookeries remain, where they once regularly pointed out the farm, the grange, or the court-house. Turkey-cocks now strut and gobble. Partridges (tetrao perdix) begin to pair; the house-pigeon has young; field-crickets open their holes; and woodowls hoot: gnats play about, and insects swarm under sunny hedges; the stone-curlew (otis ædicnemus) clamours; and frogs (rana temporaria) croak. By the end of February, the raven (corvus corax) has generally laid its eggs, and begun to sit. Moles (talpa europaeus) commence their subterraneous operations. See T.T. for 1814, p. 49, and T.T. for 1818, p. 43. About this time the green-woodpecker (picus viridis) is heard in the woods, making a loud noise. Bullfinches return to our gardens in February, and, though timid half the year, are now fearless and persevering. On the mischief effected by these birds at this season, see T.T. for 1821, p. 50. But few flowers appear in this month: the dwarfbay (daphne mezereon) puts forth its highly fragrant pale lilac flowers in profusion, often entirely concealing the branches: an occasional variety is found with white flowers. The mezereon is most readily and easily propagated by merely covering the red berries, as they fall off under the plant, with earth. The laurustinus (viburnum tinus) is in flower, and the great henbit (lamium amplexicaule) graces the sunny bank with its purple blossom; while the mulberrycoloured catkins of the alder (betula alnus) give an air of cheerfulness to the otherwise bare and desolate scene. Such was the extraordinary mildness of the last winter (1822), that the crocus was in blossom on the 2d, and the snowdrop on the 3d of February; the anemone hepalica on the 18th. On observing a BLOSSOM on the 1st of February, 1796. This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month COLERIDGE. The principal objects worthy of attention in the vegetable kingdom, in the present month, are the various species of mosses, which are, many of them, in full bloom, exhibiting, like some evergreens, their flowers and fruit at the same time.-See our last volume, pp. 51, 52. |