arm, beautifully spotted with yellow and brown, and sprinkled over with blackish specks. They have a wide mouth, by which they inhale a great quantity of air, and when inflated therewith they eject it with such force as to be heard to a considerable distance. These mortal enemies to mankind are described by Jackson, as abounding in the desert of Suse, where their holes are so numerous that it is difficult for a horse to pass without stumbling, ry METHOD OF PROCURING AND PRESRVING nostrils or the corners of the mouth, as in many species of birds these points indicate generical or specifick characters. If it be a bird feeding upon fish, such as the pelican or heron, cleanse not only the throat but the crop and pouch, for the least pressure would force out their contents and soil the plumage. To empty the pouch of a pelican, you have only to open his beak and take out the contents with your hand. In a bird without a pouch, the process although longer, has hardly more difficulty:-bang him up by the claws with the head downward, shake him, and squeeze the neck with a gentle pressure, passing from the breast down to the mouth; this will force out the contents of the stomach. After this, stuff his mouth with plaster and cotton as above directed. The escape of the excrement is prevented in the same way. This is the moment when the naturalist should make the following indispensable observations. Open his eyes and take exact note of their colour; measure his extreme length from the point of the beak to the end of the tail;—and, if you have had opportunity before shooting him of observing his attitude, note it down, that when he is stuffed he may WE have had numerous applications from our subscribers to furnish in the Magazine the necessainstructions for the procuring and preserving objects of Natural History. In compliance with this call, we commence in this number a course of articles which will be extracted from different works, but chiefly from the "Manual of the Practical Nat-be placed in the same position. These observations uralist." The instructions here given will be very may consist chiefly of the following:explicit; sufficiently so to enable any person who has the least inclination, to procure and preserve a valuable collection. 1. Does he perch † or otherwise? 2. Are his thighst bare, or hidden by the plumage. of the belly? 3. Is his body while at rest placed vertically, obliquely, or horizontally? Of taking Birds.-In whatever manner the ta4. Are the wings drawn up, or hanging down ?king of birds is to be performed, the operator should Do they cross over the tail?-Are they confounded furnish himself with a pair of pincers, paper, cot- and united with the feathers of the breast and back ton, flax or clean tow, and plaster of Paris in pow- for a third, one half, or two thirds of their length from der. Should the weather be hot, or the place of the top ?-Do their tips reach to the end of the tail? hunting distant, so as to hazard the spoiling of the or half its length? or a quarter? &c. game ere it can be sent home, have a tin box con- 5. What is the exact colour of the claws-beak taining nettle, mint, and such aromatick plants as-ceres-and glands? grow on the banks of rivers; in this pack the birds, after preparing them as we shall presently direct. This is recommended as a sure method by M. Boitard, who alleges in its favour an experience of more than twenty years in Italy and the south of France, where from the heat of the climate corruption in ordinary cases takes place in a few hours. When a bird is shot, secure him immediately, that he may not soil his feathers with the blood of the wound. Seek out the wound, and raise the feathers which cover it. Put a quantity of the powdered plaster* upon the wound, and thrust into it a plug of cotton; then add more of the plaster, and when the bleeding is quite stanched, replace the feathers. Cleanse the mouth and stop it with the tow or cotton, introducing a quantity of plaster. This precaution must be particularly observed in the case of birds of prey, as they often disgorge their food in dying, and sometimes after death. The nostrils also should be plugged with cotton, on account of the fetid matter which commonly escapes therefrom; in the vulture this matter is so strong in odour, that when the feathers become imbued with it, nothing can remove the scent. In performing the operation, care should be taken not to distort the These remarks, although they may appear unnecessarily minute, yet are very essential. One example out of a thousand will suffice. Suppose you have shot a young male or old female cresserelle ;} the most exact description will not enable you to distinguish it from a female cresserellette, unless you in the first-mentioned bird: or unless the wings and note the precise length, which is two inches longer tail be compared, as the wings in the cresserelle reach but three fourths the length of the tail. These are the only clear distinctions of the two species. Having followed the above directions, hold the bird by the bill, and shake him gently to get rid of the superfluous plaster, and return the feathers to their natural position; in aid of this you may blow upon him, but always in the direction of the feathers; then roll up a sheet of strong paper into a cone, and place him head first within, taking care habit of alighting on a branch or rail, in contradistinction to To perch, in the language of ornithology, is to follow the alighting on the ground or any flat surface: thus a robin perches, a duck does not. In the present instance, the word thigh is used in the popular application. The scientifick nomenclature gives another name to this limb of the bird. The Kestrel of Buffon, the Stannel or Wind-Hover of oth ers. Falco Tinnunculus of Gmelin. not to derange the feathers, it being extremely difficult afterward to replace them properly: the legs should be stretched along the tail, and the wings placed close then close up the package, after placing within the notes you have taken respecting the bird; then put it carefully in a box or bag, and if you have several of these packages put the largest at the bottom. unfit for your purpose; he would part with his plumage or come quite to pieces the moment you at tempted to take off the skin. Much attention is requisite in the selection of birds; upon this depends the freshness and brilliancy of colour, which gives them their greatest value. A bird reared in a cage loses his gracefulness, the beauty of his dress, and sometimes the characteris the craggy rock, that we find the enormous bird of prey armed with his long and sharp talons. It is upon the sandy shores of the ocean or the banks of rivers, that we must look for the feathered combatants armed with a splendid cuiras of long and slender plumes; the woodpecker and the sparrow are decked in the gaudy dress of the pairing-season, solely when they inhabit the solitude of the forest. The naturalist therefore will not make his selections either from the barnyard, or the aviary of the bird-fancier. Nature must be studied in the fields. When you take a bird in a snare or net, be care-ticks of his species. It is only upon the summit of ful in killing him that he does not beat his feathers off in struggling; seize him by the two fingers under the wings, between the breast and the belly, and pinch him till he is suffocated. Taking with nets is a tolerable method of obtaining small birds in good condition, but requires a degree of skill which is only attained by long practice. Its success too is hardly certain, except during the spring; when, in the season of pairing, the feathered tribe lose their timidity and allow themselves to be approached. Many interesting subjects are sometimes taken by birdlime, but they are often quite spoiled by this substance. Nevertheless, if a bird taken in this The nomenclature of birds is at present thrown manner have saved enough of his plumage to render into much confusion, by the errours of writers who him worth preserving, and his rarity make it an ob- have mistaken young individuals, females, and old ject, he may with care and patience be cleansed, males of a single class, for different species. Men thus-Rub the limed feathers with fresh butter till of high talent, Buffon himself, cannot be exempted the lime and butter coalesce, which you may know from this imputation. This great naturalist has given by the mixture's not sticking; remove as much as the name of faucon to the falco peregrinus of Gmeyou can scrape off with a knife, and wash the remain-lin ;-he has made one species of the full-grown der with a strong solution of potash; the lime being removed, wash again with clear water and dry it with powdered plaster. For want of potash, make a strong lie of equal parts of ashes and water; let it stand twenty-four hours, and decant it clear. If neither of these lotions be procurable, you may use very strong soap-suds several times renewed. Some persons, after applying the butter to the limed feathers, add a quantity of ether, and afterward wipe the feathers dry with tow. This is doubtless the most expeditions way, but has the disadvantage of discolouring the plumage. male; a second species of the young male, which he has named faucon sors; a third species of the year-old male, which he has called faucon noir passager; and a fourth species of the very old male, which has received from him the title of lanier. An intelligent amateur should employ all the means in his power to collect every variety of age and sex, as well as that variety occasioned by moulting. He who in this manner is enabled to make the acquisition of a whole genus, has rendered a true service to the study; his cabinet will possess more value in the eyes of a naturalist, than if he had heaped together thousands of individuals, rare in themselves, but isolated in respect to classification. tention of the naturalist; next follow those which frequent the shores of the sea and the banks of rivers; afterward, those of the passer tribe.* In addition to the above methods of procuring subjects, there is another which is by no means to be neglected; this is, to go to the markets where Birds of prey in general, and particularly those game is sold. But ere you purchase a bird, how-of the hawk kind, (genus falco,) deserve the first at ever valuable he may appear, satisfy yourself that he is capable of preservation. Examine first the claws, the bill, and the large beam-feathers of the wings and tail. If none of these are wanting, see whether the scull be not broken, as many persons crush with the hand the heads of those birds which they take in nets, or, when shooting, finish them by beating their heads; in these cases, the bones of the head being fractured, it will be difficult to restore it to its true shape, and with any care it could not be arranged with firmness. Still, in the case of a very rare subject, these circumstances will not detract wholly from its value. Examine moreover whether the flesh be sufficiently free from putrefaction to preserve the feathers upon the skin in the process of flaying. This you cannot always know by the smell, for the wound will sometimes exhale an odour which infects no other part. Examine attentively the small feathers at the corners of the bill and the cheeks; if they hold firmly, the bird is capable of preservation, but if you can rub off these feathers with the finger, and the skin beneath feels damp, abandon him as SIMILES, I. THERE'S a cloud in the east-'tis like night in its hue, II. In a desolate spot as gay flower ever grew in, JII. The frail water-lily is tossed to and fro *The sixth order of birds, according to the Linnæan system, comprising all the singing-birds. CAUSES OF POVERTY. 6 the tailor to make him one of the same, and the same fashion. In came the knight, and seeing the [From Sedgwick's Publick and Private Economy.] shoemaker's cloth, asked whose it was. The tailor THERE is a large class of employments that told him, it was the shoemaker's, and that he want'So be may be called the frivolous employments. It cannot ed a coat after the fashion of the knight's. be said, that the labourers in them produce nothing, it,' said the knight, cut mine as full of gashes with but that they produce nothing of substantial value. your shears as you can.' The shoemaker could get These labourers are not idle, that is not the diffi- no time to go to the tailor's till Christmas. Seeing culty; no, many of them work like slaves, late and his coat cut full of gashes he began to swear. But,' early, and in the most unwholesome occupations. said the tailor, I have done nothing but what you The singularity of this kind of labour is, that though bid me, for as Sir Philip's garment is, so is yours.' the labourers earn wages, and often very high wa-By my latchet,' says John Drakes, I will never ges, still that they do not produce anything of sub-wear gentlemen's fashions again."" stantial utility, nothing that increases the general I shall, for the present, mention one instance only wealth, and thereby enables other labourers to fare the better for the work they do. The labour here meant is that immense amount of labour consumed in the fashions. of the expenditure of the publick money for fashion sake, and that is in the dress of a midshipman in the American navy. When he enters, as midshipman, he must be fourteen years of age, and is, perhaps, the son of a poor mechanick, farmer, or clergyman. His annual pay, including rations, amounted to three hundred and eighteen dollars, previous to the winter of 1835, when it was increased by act of Congress. It is Fashion, fashion, this is the only tyrant left to exercise an uncontrolled sway over the labour of the people of the United States. It is a prodigious passion for finery and fashion, that makes poor and keeps poor very many among us. The rich employ the poor in this kind of ostentation, to gratify their In the year 1830, the then Secretary of the Navy love of expense, and to keep up their superiority of issued an order, regulating the costume of several appearance, and those who work for small wages do of the officers; accompanying these orders, were not know that there is any other mode of getting a patterns of the dresses required, of the swords, &c. living. The rich have not been taught any nobler The midshipman's coat, (full dress,) is particularly manner of spending their money, nor the poor that prescribed; it must be an embroidered coat. there is any way of getting rid of this kind of deg-made by working a profusion of silk braid upon the radation. There are in every country a given num-sleeves and other parts of it. This coat cost at the ber that want good food, clothes, houses, domestick shop of a fashionable tailor, in New York, in the animals, gardens, and other proper accommodations year 1832, fifty dollars; the embroidery on it, as a and enjoyments, but they cannot have them unless part of that fifty, fifteen. It was said, at that time, they will work to produce them. At present, in- that the entire full dress cost one hundred dollars. stead of employing our capital in setting people to Here is a boy, then, that cannot be known as the work for what they want, or rather should desire, servant of his country, without an embroidered coat, we employ them in fabricating what they do not which is not worn by the President, or any member want, and should not desire. The evil, in respect of Congress, or any private gentleman in the counto these frivolous occupations, is, that neither rich try. Neither is it worn by any member of the nor poor procure, with their labour or money, the house of Commons, or of the house of Lords, upon best enjoyments in their power, but like children, ordinary occasions. These are declared to be the cover their bodies, and fill their houses, with baw-most simple, well-dressed gentlemen in England. bles, playthings, and trinkets. These playthings, bawbles, and trinkets, are not worked for because they possess true beauty, taste, and elegance, or are they even thought to possess them. Elegance and beauty, always, in due proportion to his ability, are proper objects for the labour of man, rich or poor; and one of the great causes of poverty at present, is, that the poor are not trained to admire, and of course, not to labour for them. Much of this beauty is so cheap, and so easily obtained, that the poor would find in it a full indemnity, and more than an indemnity for all their imagined deprivations of the pleasures of the vain and sensual. But this is not our education; on the contrary, the country is deluged with gew-gaws; there is an immense expenditure upon the most frivolous products, in and out of doors, upon our dress, furniture, equipage, &c., for no better reason, than that it is the fashion. And what is fashion? The story is : "That one Calthorp purged John Drakes, the shoemaker of Norwich, England, in the time of King Henry the eighth, of the proud honour which our people have to be of the gentleman's cut. The knight bought some fine cloth and sent it to the tailor's to be made. John Drakes, the shoemaker, seeing the cloth, told The first lesson taught to this boy is a lesson of profusion, to spend what he never earned, and more than he ever spent before, and for no better reason, than that this is the warlike fashion; and still the sensible gentlemen of the navy despise this finery, and object to it for the same reason that a farmer or mechanick should. The money that a country pays its publick officers should be mainly for good work and noble deeds; these are always entitled to good wages. Little do the people know of the immense amount of their money paid by government in follies of this kind. Fashion does not mean a good fashion; so far from it, that it is true, that there are admirable articles, such as particular kinds of clothes, and other things, of the most excellent and durable workmanship, that are thrown by, even by those who earn their daily bread, and never resumed, because the fashionable part of the publick have abandoned them. Thus, the labourers do not bury their talents merely, but throw them into the sea; they voluntarily give up a power which feeds them and clothes them, which they have gained by their own ingenuity, and hard work, and surrender to vanity and pride the charter of their freedom. Fashion, therefore, does not imply anything solidly useful, substantial, or beautiful, (for good and useful fashions should be adopted of course.) nor that it is better than a former, more fit or graceful, but only, generally, that it has been introduced by some insignificant people in London or Paris, and thence transplanted into this country by merchants and traders, to turn the heads and empty the pockets of the people into their own. Besides, there are thousands, not only in London and Paris, but in our own country, whose sole business and trade, is, to get up these fashions, to establish them, to set them afloat in the world. It is by thus following the fashion, not on account of intemperance, or any other vice, not on account of pauper wages, and the necessity, as they think, of turn-outs, that many of our respectable mechanicks and labourers, in the factories and elsewhere, sacrifice their independence for a bawble; that our upright and otherwise high-minded farmers, load their estates with mortgages, and finally reduce themselves to beggary; that the very poorest of the people sacrifice their last shilling in some tawdry decoration of the person or fashionable sensuality, who have not sound shoes, or stockings, or a whole flannel garment. do not know what their money is worth, or stands As I intend hereafter to give some account of the fashion-trade, I will here make but one statement in regard to it. It has been supposed that in England, at the present day, "the quantity of gold and silver in actual existence, including utensils, ornaments, jewellery, trinkets, and watches, is three or four times as great as the value of those metals which exist in the form of money." What proportion of this immense amount is consumed in bawbles, trinkets, useless gilding, and plating, sham ornaments, &c., it is impossible to say. It is certainly not intended to include so useful an article as a watch, the wearing of which has, within a few years, been discarded by a certain portion of fashionable females, and for no better reason than that the common people now wear watches. In this way the utmost skill and ingenuity of the mechanick and manufacturer, are called forth to keep up the folly, to vary the mode, to change the stripes, to make the thing large or small, round or square, black or white, short or long, or in some other form, or of some other colour than it was before, for it matters not what form or colour, only that the thing be changed. Change, change, is the cternal, clamorous cry of fashion! Much finery is made in Paris and in other parts of France, principally for our market alone, in the same way as we buy and make beads and other trinkets, to send to savage nations. These worthless things first appear among the extravagant people of the cities; the refuse and sweepings are afterward sent to filch the money of our plain country-people. Their life is short, however, perhaps six months, or a year, in town or country, at the end of which time they are discarded; for nothing is so disgusting to the chameleon eyes of If the rich only purchased these bawbles and trinfashion as old finery-and then it may be seen on kets, the evil would not be so great as it is, though the backs of servants, as presents from silly masters that would be bad enough; for every rich man's and mistresses, who are for ever complaining of bad money may be well employed, not only for his own service, and who thus debauch the morals and tastes advantage, but for that of the poor also, and a thouof the people whom they hire, by the use of that sand times as much if he had it. It is impossible which is entirely unsuitable to their condition. An- that so many human beings should consent to be other part of this finery is doled out by hard-heart-employed in ministering to each other's vanity, in ed and dishonest employers, to the very poorest of fabricating trash for their mutual use, did they not the people, in pay for under-price wages; for none suppose that it must be so that it is best that it work for ever so little a pittance that some cannot should be so. Yes, they believe this to be true pobe found to work for a less, and thus these misera-litical economy; and they show some of the greatble people, by their vanity and pride, and running at the heels of the rich, are kept ground into the very dust. If those who call themselves the workingpeople, would "cut" the fashionable world, they would create a new world for themselves; this would be better than a thousand turn-outs. est teachers to be on their side. Therefore we are taught to waste, destroy, consume, that the poor may find employment. They say, that if the rich did not scatter, the poor would starve; whereas the fact is, that the more wasteful the rich are, the more poor people they create. They say, also, that if the Of all the ways of spending money, few can be rich did not spend their money like children, they thought of more contemptible than to load the head, would hoard it like misers. The way, then, to satneck, ears, body, fingers, feet, with a mass of finery isfy all men, both rich and poor, that it is not for their and trumpery, created only by immense labour, and comfort and happiness to spend any part of their to be discarded for ever upon the first turn in the money, or labour, which is the same thing, in the fashions if done by the rich, it is extreme folly-many wicked and stupid ways pointed out in this if by the poor, certain ruin. The silly people who article, is to prove to them that there a great many better ways. The way in which a nation spends and falling upon the earth, exhibits itself in the form its money, will generally greatly depend upon what either of snow or hail; that congealing upon the surthey have produced-upon what they have created face of the earth is termed ice. Hail is of the same by their work, and this will decide what occupa- nature as ice: snow is of the same nature as white tions, arts, and trades there shall be. The useful frost. That snow may be formed, it is necessary arts and trades are those by which alone the great that the aqueous particles diffused through the air mass of men can prosper. It is plain, then, that should congeal before they have united into gross the wealth, the comfort, the independence, the re- drops. The causes producing solidification in bodspectability, of a people will much depend upon the ies, may sometimes so operate, that the masses conamount not only, but the kind of productions that creting shall assume certain regular and systematick their labour creates. The great reformation at present in the world is, that the people are more usefully and virtuously employed than they were, for this produces improvement in all things. These virtuous labours are the foundation of civilization-of our Christian civilization-of the civilization of the present time; not Roman civilization, where the rich hired the poor, at their private social parties, to kill each other in gladiatorial combat, for the entertainment of the company. If, then, there be now an improvement in the labours of the people, in what they are hired to do, it may be greater still, if they labour now more to their own advantage than they once did, they can go on in the same good course. Let this, then, be a cardinal American maxim, that there can never be a limit to the good things which the heart of the people can conceive and execute! figures. These, in chymistry, are termed crystals. In water, crystallization is ascribable only to abstraction of calorick; but in other substances it is effected also by evaporation. The crystals of snow, particularly, are distinguished from all others in another respect; viz. they consist of little, thin, smooth, and narrow bars of transparent ice, so disposed that they form planular or flattened hexagonal stelle, or stars, rather than solid masses of a cuboi dal or pyramidal configuration. These stelle, or stars, though of sufficient magnitude for ocular inspection, are, however, of rare occurrence, the flocculi being ordinarily of irregular and unequal figure. Hence they have been remarked upon by very When they do occur, therefore, they should few. be noted. How snow should take on this beautiful stellated crystallization, and by what operation the various modifications of these stars are produced is not yet ascertained. Dr. Grew, however, has endeavoured WATER, undergoing congelation in the heavens, to clear up this matter by comparing the crystals of SNOW CRYSTALS. |