bird remains till towards the end of September, before it leaves our shores to return home. They are supposed to winter in Africa, as they are seen twice a year in the island of Malta. The school-boy, wand'ring in the wood, And imitates thy lay. Logan. It is almost universally agreed by naturalists, that the cuckoo does not hatch its own eggs, but deposits them in the nest of some other bird. Buffon mentions twenty birds on which it practices this fraud. Those most frequently duped in this manner are the yellow hammer, water wagtail, and hedge sparrow; but mostly the latter. The hedge sparrow takes four or five days in laying her eggs, during which time the cuckoo deposits her egg with the rest, leaving the future care of it to the hedge sparrow. This intrusion often occasions some discomposure; for the old hedge sparrow at intervals, whilst she is sitting, not unfrequently throws out some of her own eggs, and injures them in such a way that they become addled; so that it frequently happens that two or three of the hedge sparrow's eggs are hatched with the cuckoo's. But whether this be the case or not, she sits the same length of time as if no foreign egg had been introduced, the cuckoo's egg requiring no longer time for incubation than her own. When the hedge sparrow has sat her usual time, and disengaged the young cuckoo and some of her own offspring from the shell, her own young ones, and any of her eggs that remain unhatched, are soon turned out, the young cuckoo remaining possessor of the nest, and sole object of her future care. The young birds are not previously killed, nor are the eggs demolished; but all are left to perish together, either being entangled about the bush which contains the nest, or lying on the ground under it. A variety of conjectures have been formed on the early fate of the young hedge sparrows: some have supposed the parent cuckoo the author of their destruction, whilst others have, as erroneously, pronounced them to be smothered by the disproportionate size of their fellow-nestling. The real cause has been thus related by Dr. Jenner, in the "Philosophical Trans actions :" "June 18, 1787, I examined the nest of a hedge sparrow, which then contained a cuckoo's and three hedge sparrow's eggs. On inspecting it, the day following, I found the bird had hatched, but that the nest now contained only a young cuckoo, and one young hedge sparrow. The nest was placed so near the extremity of a hedge, that I could distinctly see what was going forward in it; and, to my astonishment, saw the young cuckoo, though so newly hatched, in the act of turning out the young hedge sparrow. The mode of accomplishing this was very curious. The little animal contrived to get the bird upon its back; and making a lodgment for the burden, by elevating its elbows, clambered backward with it up the side of the nest till it reached the top; where, resting for a moment, it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. It remained in this situation a short time, feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced whether the business was properly executed, and then dropped into the nest again. With these (the extremity of its wings,) I have often seen it examine, as it were, an egg and nestling before it began its operations; and the nice sensibility which these parts appeared to possess, scemed sufficient to compensate the want of sight, which as yet it was destitute of. I afterwards put in an egg; and this, by a similar process, was conveyed to the edge of the nest and thrown out. These experiments I have since repeated several times in different nests, and have always found the young cuckoo disposed to act in the same manner. In climbing up the nest, it sometimes drops its burden, and thus is foiled in its endeavors; but, after a little respite, the work is resumed, and goes on almost incessantly till it is effected. It is wonderful to see the extraordinary exertions of the young cuckoo, when it is two or three days old, if a bird be put in the nest with it that is too weighty for it to lift out in this state it seems ever restless and uneasy. But this disposition for turning out its companions begins to decline from the time it is two or three till it is about twelve days old; when, as far as I have hitherto seen, it ceases. The divine Grahame, in his " Birds of Scotland," has thus noticed this bird : How sweet the first sound of the cuckoo's note! How do we long recal the very tree, Or bush, near which we stood, when on the ear And yet again, came down the budding vale? It tells of lengthening days, of coming blooms; A singular custom prevails in Shropshire, as soon as the cuckoo is heard: when all the laboring classes leave their work, and devote the rest of the day to mirth and jollity over what is called the cuckoo-ale. The cuckoo is a gentle bird, and gentle is his note, And April it is pleasant, while the sun is waxing hot, For amid the green wood's growing, and the fresh flower's blooming throng, Forth comes the gentle cuckoo with his meek and modest song. The woodcock comes, and with the swan brings winter on his wing, The groves cast off their garments green, the small birds cease to sing; The wild birds cease to sing till the lilies scent the earth, But the cuckoo scatters roses round whenever he goes forth. SONNET TO SUMMER. Hail! glowing Summer, nature's chief delight, Clad in the rainbow's many-color'd hue, To climes unblest by thy benignant ray, WILLIAM L***. THE POWER OF ADVERSITY. Before the hand of republican power had levelled all distinction in France, and sunk the proudest families to the humiliating condition of the meanest peasant, in the gay neighbourhood of Versailles, the Marquis d'Embleville owned a sumptuous hotel, where he lived in epicurean luxury, and princely splendor. His mind possessed all the imperious vanity of the ancient regime; and, placed by fortune at an awful distance, he looked down upon the canaille as unworthy to hold with him in a rank in the same scale of being. His only son, Lewis, in the prime of youth, had made the tour of Switzerland: he had visited every part of those wondrous regions, where nature reigns in all her grandeur, and displays to the enthusiastic mind that sublime and majestic scenery, which attracts and gratifies the most unbounded curiosity. So remote from the haunts of courtly pleasure--so distant from the giddy circle of high life, he felt the impression of that tender passion, beneath whose controlling power, mortals of all degrees are indiscriminately doomed to bow. The object of his admiration was a lovely Swiss, fresh from the hand of nature, in all the bloom of youth and beauty, like the mother of mankind, in the state of primeval innocence: honesty was the only wealth her friends possessed her charms and virtue were her only portion. With this lovely maid, Lewis had sought and cultivated an acquaintance. He weighed her mental graces against the frippery of Parisian belles, and with pleasure saw them greatly preponderate. She felt the congenial passion; but from disparity of circumstances, suppressed the kindling hope. The shaft was fixed too deep in his bosom to be eradicated, without lacerating his vitals. Although despairing of success, he returned to his father, and, on his knee, besought him to confirm his happiness by an assent to this unequal union. Degrading information! Should the honorary tide of princely blood, long flowing down the channel of an illustrious ancestry, be contaminated by mingling with plebeian streams? No! he spurned him from his feet, and, with a niggard hand, reluctantly conferring a scanty annuity, bade him retire again to ignominious exile, and see his face no more. He was too well acquainted with the inflexibility of his father's temper, when once arrived at a certain point; he knew that the moment of expostulation was for ever past. He was forbidden to return to seek a pardon, even by the narrow path of duty; he, therefore, felt himself not unhappy, that, without a direct breach of parental obligation, he could, by the trivial sacrifice of his fortune, obtain the object of his desires. He bade adieu to the scenes of departed affluence, and flew to repose himself on the faithful bosom of domestic affection. The inhabitants of the happy valley celebrated their nuptials with the usual ceremonies, and Lewis soon forgot that he was born to higher expectations. The storm, which had long been gathering over devoted France, at length descended, involving in one general ruin all the pride of prerogative, title, and family. The sanguinary streams that flowed from the throne, swollen by a thousand rills, had deluged the nation, and the horrid engine of death (the guillotine) still frowned tremendously over its innumerable victims. Not with less terror than the trembling traveller, when he sees the accumulating avalanche thundering from Alpine precipices, in its progress tearing up towering pines, and crushing into atoms the obstructing cottages, the Marquis d'Embleville beheld the approaching desolation. His lady died of a broken heart, to observe the splendor of her family eclipsed; and, rescuing a comparative trifle from the wreck of affluence, he hastily left his proscribed country in disguise, and fled towards the regions of ancient Helvetic liberty; where, after long and weary wandering among those eternal mountains, which form the barrier of nations-whose heads, crowned with snows, old as the creation, view the turgid clouds rolling round their base amid the wildest scenes of nature, he experienced the bitter pangs of reflection, without a beam of distant hope to cheer him in his exile. In order to divert the cares that wrung his bosom, he had visited the stupendous cataract of the Rhine, he had marked the wanderings of the Emmen and the Reuss, and arrived at length at a charmingly romantic valley in the neighbourhood of Lugano. The evening sun shot his yellow rays over orange and citron groves which clothed the sides of the far-stretched mountains, when he reached a neat little cottage, seated on a gentle declivity, which terminated in the tranquil waters of an extensive lake, over which gentle zephyrs wafted the softened |