feet and claws, would seem to render this no difficult | piled to the height of four or five feet, and from two matter. But they no sooner arrive, than they wage to three feet in breadth; these were intermixed with war on the bald eagles, as against a horde of rob- corn-stalks, sea-weed, pieces of wet turf in large bers and banditti; sometimes succeeding, by force of numbers and perseverance, in driving them from their haunts, but seldom or never attacking them in single combat.

quantities, mullein-stalks, and lined with dry seagrass; the whole forming a mass very observable at half a mile's distance, and large enough to fill a cart, and form no inconsiderable load for a horse. These "The first appearance of the fish-hawk in spring, materials are so well put together, as often to adhere, is welcomed by the fishermen, as the happy signal in large fragments, after being blown down by the of the approach of those vast shoals of herring, wind. About the first of May, the female fish-hawk shad, &c. that regularly arrive on our coasts, and begins to lay her eggs, which are commonly three enter our rivers in such prodigious multitudes. Two in number, sometimes only two, and rarely four. of a trade, it is said, seldom agree; the adage, how- They are somewhat larger than those of the comever, will not hold good in the present case, for such mon hen, and nearly of the same shape. The is the respect paid the fish-hawk, not only by this ground colour varies, in different eggs, from a redclass of men, but generally by the whole neighbour-dish cream, to nearly a white, splashed and daubed hood where it resides, that a person who should attempt to shoot one of them, would stand a fair chance of being insulted. This prepossession in favour of the fish-hawk is honourable to their feelings. They associate with its first appearance, ideas of plenty, and all the gayety of business; they see it active and industrious like themselves; inoffensive to the productions of their farms; building with confidence, and without the least disposition to concealment, in the middle of their fields, and along their fences; and returning, year after year, regularly to its former abode.

"The nest of the fish-hawk is usually built on the op of a dead or decaying tree, sometimes not more han fifteen, often upward of fifty, feet from the ground. It has been remarked by the people of the seacoasts, that the most thriving tree will die in a few years after being taken possession of by the fish-hawk. This is attributed to the fish-oil, and to the excrements of the bird; but is more probably occasioned by the large heap of wet salt materials of which the nest is usually composed. In my late excursions to the seashore, I ascended to several of these nests, that had been built in from year to year, and found them constructed as follows:-Externally, large sticks, from half an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, and two or three feet in length, VOL. V.-32

all over with dark Spanish brown, as if done by art. During the time the female is sitting, the male frequently supplies her with fish; though she occasionally takes a short circuit to sea herself, but quickly returns again. The attention of the male, on such occasions, is regulated by the circumstances of the case. A pair of these birds on the south side of Great Egg Harbour river, and near its mouth, were noted for several years. The female, having but one leg, was regularly furnished, while sitting, with fish in such abundance, that she seldom left the nest, and never to seek for food. This kindness was continued both before and after incubation. Some animals who claim the name and rationality of man, might blush at the recital of this fact."

THE SPARROW-HAWK.

THIS is a bird of many names; it is the little falcon, the St. Domingo falcon, the New York merlin, the American merlin. The female is eleven inches long, and twenty-three inches from tip to tip of the expanded wings; the cere and legs yellow; bill blue, tipped with black; space round the eye greenish blue; iris deep dusky; head bluish ash; crown rufous; seven spots of black on a white ground surround the head; whole upper parts reddish bay,

transversely streaked with black; primary and sec-aim. One day, I observed a bird of this species ondary quills black, spotted on their inner vanes perched on the highest top of a large poplar on the with brownish white; whole lower parts yellowish skirts of the wood, and was in the act of raising the white, marked with longitudinal streaks of brown, gun to my eye, when he swept down with the rapidexcept the chin, vent, and femoral feathers, which ity of an arrow into a thicket of briers about thirty are white; claws black. The male sparrow-hawk yards off, where I shot him dead, and, on coming measures about ten inches, and is about twenty-one up, found a small field-sparrow quivering in his grasp. inches in the stretch of the wings; the whole upper Both our aims had been taken at the same instant, parts of the head are of a fine slate blue, the shafts and, unfortunately for him, both were fatal. It is of the plumage being black, the crown excepted, particularly fond of watching along hedge-rows and which is marked with a bright reddish spot; the in orchards, where small birds usually resort. When slate tapers to a point on each side of the neck; grasshoppers are plenty, they form a considerable seven black spots surround the head, as in the fe- part of its food." Wilson adds a very characterismale, on a reddish white ground, which also borders tick instance of the delicacy of taste of this falcon each sloping side of the blue; line over and under in respect to its food:-"Though small snakes, the eye and chin, white; femoral and vent-feathers mice, lizards, &c.," says he, "be favourite morsels yellowish white; the rest of the lower parts of the with this active bird, yet we are not to suppose it same teint, each feather being streaked down the altogether destitute of delicacy in feeding. It will centre with a long black drop, those on the breast seldom or never eat of anything that it has not itself slender, on the sides larger; upper part of the back killed, and even that, if not (as epicures would term and scapulars deep reddish bay, marked with ten it) in good eating order, is sometimes rejected. A transverse waves of black; whole wing-coverts, and very respectable friend, through the medium of Mr. ends of the secondaries, black, tipped with white, Bartram, informs me, that one morning he observed and spotted on their inner vanes with the same; one of the hawks dart down on the ground, and lower part of the back, the rump, and the tail-cov- seize a mouse, which he carried to a fence-post, erts, plain bright bay; tail rounded, the two exte- where, after examining it for some time, he left it, riour feathers white, their inner vanes beautifully and, a little while after, pounced upon another spotted with black; the next bright bay, with a mouse, which he instantly carried off to his nest, in broad band of black near its end, and tipped for half the hollow of a tree hard by. The gentleman, an inch with yellowish white; part of its lower ex-anxious to know why the hawk had rejected the first teriour edge white, spotted with black, and its oppo- mouse, went up to it, and found it to be almost covsite interiour edge touched with white; the whole ered with lice, and greatly emaciated! Here was of the others are very deep bay, with a single broad not only delicacy of taste, but sound and prudent band of black near the end, and tipped with yellow-reasoning. If I carry this to my nest, thought he, ish white; cere and legs yellow; orbits the same; it will fill it with vermin, and hardly be worth eating. bill light blue; iris of the eye dark, almost black; claws blue black.

The blue-jays have a particular antipathy to this bird, and frequently insult it by following and imThis species is not confined to the United States, itating its notes so exactly, as to deceive even those and indeed it is a native of the warm countries well acquainted with both. In return for all this rather than the cold ones, being more abundant in abuse, the hawk contents himself with now and then the southern states than in the northern, and being feasting on the plumpest of his persecutors, who especially numerous in St. Domingo or Hayti, and are, therefore, in perpetual dread of him; and yet, not unknown on the continent of South America. through some strange infatuation, or from fear that, In all probability, indeed, its colours and character if they lose sight of him, he may attack them unmay vary in different parts of the vast range of lat-awares, the sparrow-hawk no sooner appears than itude over which it extends, so that it is possible the alarm is given, and the whole force of jays folthat several of those species about the same size, low." This tendency, which small birds have, to which have been named as occurring in different crowd round and annoy their more powerful enemies, parts of the American continent, are nothing more is a curious point in natural history, and one the than climatal varieties of this one; and as it is one rationale of which is not very easily understood; the of the few foreign species of which the characters more so, that it does not hold in the case of the very are tolerably well known, we shall quote from Wil-powerful birds of prey. Nobody, we presume, has son a short passage descriptive of its manners :- seen a flock of birds, either great or small, following "It flies rather irregularly, occasionally suspend- and annoying the golden eagle, the jerfalcon, or even ing itself in the air, hovering over a particular spot the peregrine. It is true that these prey less frefor a minute or two, and then shooting off in another quently upon little birds than the smaller hawks; direction. It perches on the top of a dead tree or and therefore they do not stand so directly in the pole, in the middle of a field or meadow, and, as it character of enemies; but still, as was observed by alights, shuts its long wings so suddenly, that they Wilson, and is reported by American naturalists genseem instantly to disappear. It sits here in an erally, the ospreys crowd round and annoy the whitealmost perpendicular position, sometimes for an hour headed eagle. The grand object seems to be, so to at a time, frequently jerking its tail, and reconnoi- distract the attention of the enemy, as that he shall tring the ground below, in every direction, for mice, not be able to single out any one individual as his lizards, &c. It approaches the farmhouse, partic- victim, but wear himself out in a crowd, the memularly in the morning, skulking about the farmyard for mice or young chickens. It frequently plunges into a thicket after small birds, as if at random, but always with a particular, and generally with a fatal,

bers of which are all equally attractive. This point, if duly worked out, might help to explain the curious subject of fascination, which some animals appear to possess over their prey.

POPULAR MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS.

WET FEET.

WHAT a crowd of painful recollections are conjured up in the mind of a physician, of any age and experience, by the words wet feet. The child which had been playing about in the morning in all its infantile loveliness and vivacity, is seized at night with croud from wet feet, and in a day or two is a corpse. The youthful form of female beauty, which a few months before gladdened the eyes of every beholder, is wasting in slow, remediless decay. What was the origin of her malady? Wet feet. Let us hope that the exposure was incurred in a visit of mercy to a helpless widow or distressed orphan. Whence come the lingering disease, the pain and suffering of that fond mother? Still the same response: getting her feet wet, while providing suitable winter's clothing for her children-as if tenderness for her offspring justified her dispensing with all the rules of prudence for herself. Thus we might continue the melancholy list of diseases, at best harassing and alarming, often fatal, to which the heedlessness of youth, the pride of manhood, or the avarice of old age, are voluntarily and causelessly exposed by a neglect of one lesson of everyday-experience.

with such a frail covering as would make the strong man tremble for his own health, were he to be equally daring.

At a season like the present it would seem to be a matter of gratulation, that shoes and boots can everywhere be obtained of such materials as to preserve the feet dry and warm. Leather of various kinds, firm, or pliable and soft, is at the shortest warning made to assume every variety of shape and figure, called for by convenience or fashion. But we mistake-fashion, that despotick destroyer of comfort, and too often a sworn foe to health, will not allow the feet of a lady fair to be incased in leather. She must wear forsooth, cloth shoes with a thin leather sole, and even this latter is barely conceded. A covering for the feet never originally intended to be seen beyond the chamber or parlour, is that now adopted for street parade and travel; and they whose cheeks we would not that the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, brave in prunello the extremes of cold and moisture, and offer themselves as willing victims to all the sufferings of the shivering ague, catarrh, and pains rheumatick. Tell them of a wiser course; argue with some on their duties, as mothers and as wives, to preserve their health-with others, as daughters of beauty who are risking by approaching disease the loss of their loveliness, and they will reply, that they cannot wear those horrid large shoes

It needs no medical lore nor laboured reasoning to show the great influence which impressions on the feet exert over the rest of the body at large. The that leather does not fit so nicely on the feet, and real martyrdom produced by tickling them, and the that India-rubber shoes are frightful. They do not cruel punishment of the bastinado, are sensible evi- reflect that beauty consists in the fitness and harmodences of their exquisite delicacy of feeling. Of ny of things, and that we cannot associate it with this fact we have more pleasurable experience in the the ideas of suffering and disease. The light draglow diffused through the whole system, when, pery so gracefully and elegantly arranged as to exchilled and shivering, we hold them for a while to hibit without obtruding her figure, is worthy of all the fire; or when, during the prevalence of the dog-admiration in a Grecian nymph under a Grecian sky, star, we immerse them in cold water to allay the and when its wearer is warmed by a southern sun. heat which is then coursing through our veins. Are The muslin robe of one of our beauties of the ballthe internal organs of the body a prey to wasting in-room, is tasteful and appropriate, where lights and flammation, as in the hectick fever of consumption, musick are additions to the scene-but could we there is a sensation of burning heat in the feet. Is preserve our admiration for the Grecian nymph or the body feeble and the stomach unable to perform the modern belle, if in these costumes they were its digestive functions, these parts are habitually cold. In both health and disease there is a constant sympathy between the feet and the different organs of the body. Whatever be the weak part, it suffers with unfailing certainty from the impressions of cold and moisture on the feet. No matter whether the tendency be to sick headache, or sore. throat, hoarseness and cough-pain of the stomach, or rheumatism, or gout severally and all they will be brought on by getting the feet wet, or at times even by these parts being long chilled, from standing on cold ground or pavement. And who, it might be asked, are the chief victims to such exposures? Not the traveller caught in the storm, or the man of business, nor even the day-labourer, who cannot always watch But how, conceding all the beauty claimed by its the appearance of the clouds and pick their steps admirers to an exhibition of small feet, in neat tight with an especial avoidance of a muddy soil, or wet shoes, can we receive this as a substitute for clear streets-Ono!-we must look for the largest num-complexion, brilliant lustre of the eye, and the mild ber of sufferers among the rich, the fair, and the smile of content, all lost by repeated attacks of a lovely of the land-those who need only walk cold, or the coming on of dyspepsy and sick headabroad when invited by the fair blue sky and shi-ache, the consequences of wet and cold feet. ning sun-or who, if pleasure calls at other seasons, Custom, it is alleged by some, renders persons have all the means of protection against the elemen- thus exposed less liable to suffer. But the custom tal changes, which wealth can command of ingenui- of occasionally walking out in thin cloth shoes, ty and labour. They it is who neglect suitable pro- which are inadequate covering for the feet, is a very tection for their feet, and brave the snow and rain different thing from the habit of constant exposure

seen walking the streets mid sleet and wind? Pity they would assuredly command-but will a female be content with the offering which any beggar is sure of receiving? We have gazed on the finest productions of the chisel and the pencil-we have studied beauty with the admiration of a lover, and the purposes of an artist, and we do assure our female readers that however much we may admire a small and finely turned foot when seen tripping through the mazes of the dance, we cannot look upon it with a pleased eye, unprotected by suitable covering in a winter's day. This covering is not prunello or that most flimsy stuff satirically called everlasting.

of these parts to cold and moisture. If the sandal A sleeping apartment, in which a large fire has were habitually worn, and the foot in a great meas-been kept up for several hours previous to the periure exposed to the air, custom, might then be ad- od of retiring to rest, may to many, at the first view, duced as an argument against increased precautions. present an appearance of the most perfect comfort— It is idle to talk of females accustoming themselves to having their feet chilled, damp, or wet an hour or two in the streets during the day, when for the remainder of this period they take the greatest pains to have them dry and warm, by toasting them, perhaps for hours, before a large fire.

We would advise those who are so excessively delicate as to be incapable of passing a few minutes A bed-chamber should be divested of all unneces- morning and evening, in a cold room, to seek some sary furniture, and, unless of considerable size, more genial climate-to such our winter cannot fail should never contain more than one bed. There to be a season of constant suffering, if not of actual cannot be a more pernicious custom, than that pur-danger.

sued in many families, of causing the children, more A practice equally imprudent with that of occupyespecially, to sleep in small apartments, with two or ing a heated bed-chamber, during cold weather, is three beds crowded into the same room.

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that cleanliness, in the most extensive signification of the term, is, if possible even more necessary, in reference to the bed-chamber, than to almost any other apartment. The practice of sleeping in an apartment which is occupied during the day is extremely improper. Perfect cleanliness and a sufficiently free ventilation While a free admission of air is permitted throughcannot, under such circumstances, be preserved, es-out the day, the direct rays of the meridian sun, bepecially during cold weather; hence, the atmosphere becomes constantly more and more vitiated, and altogether unfitted for respiration.