you. Now look through this opening, which is large enough for a man comfortably to pass through, holding your candle above your head; you will see a deep unexplored abyss,

this room, we must diverge a little, and visit one or two rooms that branch off from the main path. Directly to your right, as you emerge from the wilderness, there rises an immense mass, appa"Where the footstep of mortal has never trod." rently of solid stalagmite, thirty-six feet in length, No man has ever yet ventured into this place, for thirty feet in breadth, and thirty feet in height; it can only be entered by means of a rope-ladder, this mass is beautiful beyond description, very but if my life is spared, and my courage does not much resembling successive stories, and is called fail me, I shall, at no distant period, attempt to the Tower of Babel! The most splendid portion explore the hidden mysteries of the apartment. of the tower is on the back, but it is difficult of Once more in the dining room let us go on to access, for it is necessary to climb up the surface the completion of our task. The main path pur- of the rock to the height of fifteen or twenty feet; sues the same course from this room as it has the view, however, amply repays you for the ladone ever since you entered Washington's hall; bor. For a few moments you can scarcely conbut your way now lies up a sort of hill, in the vince yourself that an immense body of water is side of which is the opening through which you not pouring over the precipice in a foaming catare to pass. If you are adventurous, you will fol-aract, so white, so dazzling is the effulgence of low me above the opening, up the nearly perpen- the rock; and when this impression is effaced, dicular face of the rock, to the height of fifty feet, the words of the pious bard rush into the mind, where a ledge of rocks stretches along, and forms where he describes the awful effects that will fol the left side of the dining room. From this emi-low the consummation of all things;—

scene.

"The cataract, that like a giant wroth,
Rushed down impetuously, as seized at once
By sudden frost, with all his hoary locks,
Stood still!"

nence, called the Giant's Causeway, you can look down into the dining room on one side, and Jackson's room on the other. Great caution is necessary in climbing this height, lest too much confidence be reposed in the projecting stalagmites, One might almost imagine that Pollok had visitthat seemingly offer a secure foothold to the in-ed this wonder, and caught the idea so forcibly cautious adventurer, but frequently give way be- expressed above, from viewing this magnificent neath him. It must be remembered that they are formed by droppings from the roof, and are often We have already so much exceeded our inbased only in the mud. By cautiously descend-tended limits, that we can only look into the large ing the ledge for five or six feet, on the side op- apartment that occupies the space behind the posite to that which we ascended, we shall be tower, which is called Sir Walter Scott's Room, enabled to reach with ease the room which has and then hasten back to the main path. already been attained by the rest of the company who have been less ambitious than ourselves, and passed through the little opening already pointed out in ascending the causeway.

Jefferson's room, that we left some time since, is very irregular in shape, and is two hundred and thirty-five feet long, following the various windings. What is commonly called the end of the cave, is distinguished by two singular, thin, lamellar rocks, five or six feet in diameter, united at their bases, but spreading out so that the outer edges are several feet apart; this is called the Fly Trap. To the left of the Fly trap is a large recess, where is a fine spring, at which the weary visiter is glad to slake his thirst, after the fatigues of his arduous undertaking.

This room, or perhaps it should be called passage, is denominated the Wilderness, from the roughness of the pathway, and is only ten feet wide, but it rises to the immense height of ninety or one hundred feet! As we come along the causeway, and look down upon our right, we shall see our company forty or fifty feet below us, while our eyes can scarcely penetrate through the darkness to the ceiling above their heads. Very many visiters have their curiosity satisfied. Upon the very verge of the rock upon which we long before they have gone over the ground that are standing, are several beautiful white stalag-we have, but I am writing only for those who, like mites, grouped together, among which one stands me, are not satisfied, until everything is seen that pre-eminent. This is Bonaparte with his body- is worthy of notice. Such would not excuse me, guard, crossing the Alps. The effect is peculiarly fine, when viewed from below.

did I not mention one more curiosity, few take the trouble to visit. A few yards beyond the flyWithout descending from our dangerous eleva- trap, there is an opening in the solid wall at the tion, we will go on our way a little farther. Pro- height of about twelve feet, through which you ceeding only a few paces from the emperor, you are admitted by a temporary ladder. By hard find yourself upon an arch, under which your climbing you soon penetrate to the end of the company are passing, which is very appropriately called the Natural Bridge; but it should be crossed, if at all, with great caution, for there is dan ger of being precipitated to the bottom. Retracing our steps nearly to Napoleon, we will descend on the left, and by a jump of six feet, rejoin our company at the end of the Wilderness.

You are now upon the lowest level of the cave, and at the entrance of the farthest room. This is Jefferson's Hall; an extensive, but not very elevated apartment, quite level. Before I describe

recess, where you will find the Source of the Nile! This is a beautiful limpid spring, covered with a thin pellicle of stalagmite, yet sufficiently strong to bear your weight; in this crust there is a perforation that gives you access to the water beneath.

As far as it is practicable, I have described very cursorily this wonderful cavern; but I feel convinced that no pen can adequately describe a curiosity so extensive, so magnificent, and so varied in its beauties.

440

THE COMMON CRANE.

convolution near its bronchial extremity. When they cry during the day they are generally underTHE body of this species of crane is generally stood to forebode rain, as is the case with the of an ashen-gray color, with the throat, the fore- cries of many other birds which feed partially on part of the neck, and the hind head dusky; the those worms which the approaching humidity crest or cap on the head, and also the quills black. brings to the surface, not only when the rain acThe bird is about the size of a turkey in the body, tually falls, but when, from the changed state of and weighs about ten pounds, but, from the great the air, the evaporation is much diminished. ength of its legs, it is nearly five feet in height. When they are peculiarly noisy and tumultuous, Common cranes are very discursive birds, and and fly near the ground, occasionally alighting, it range seasonally from the north of Europe to the is considered as a pretty certain indication of a south of Asia and the north of Africa, and in the tempest. On the other hand, when they rise high, latter country they are said to extend their mi-and fly onward in regular order, it is regarded as grations as far as the Cape of Good Hope. On a sign of fine weather.

these excursions they fly high in the air, though In getting on the wing, the apparent difficulty they experience some difficulty in getting on the wing from the ground. Before taking their spring they run some paces, raise themselves a little at first, and then unfold a powerful and rapid wing. In the air they form very nearly an isosceles triangle, possibly for the purpose of cutting the element with greater facility. When attacked by an eagle, or the wind is likely to break their order, they close in circles. Their passage frequently takes place during the night, which is known by their sonorous voice, which announces it, and the head of the troop often utters, to indicate the route he is taking, a cry of appeal, to which all his followers answer. Their voices, even on these nocturnal voyages, are exceedingly loud, probably owing to the length of the windpipe, and the

which they experience does not arise from the want of space in which to move their wings, for their legs are sufficiently long for allowing these to act with perfect freedom, even when the feet are firmly on the ground. They appear to run forward, for the purpose of getting an impetus of the whole body; and when that is acquired, they jerk themselves into the air by the elasticity of the legs, and move off in very good style, and they are capable of passing over many miles without alighting. When they assemble on the ground for the purpose of repose which, after a long flight, they take with the head under the wing, they have always sentinels appointed to give the alarm in case of danger. Those sentinels stand on the one leg, as is also the habit of the storks;

ties of the year; and later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving heats of summer. But in this genial interval, nature is in all her freshness and fragrance; "the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed by the sweetbriar and the wild-rose; the meadows are enameled with clover-blossoms; while the young apple, the peach, and the plum, begin to swell, and the cherry to glow among the green leaves.

and the peculiar structure by means of which this | middle of May, and lasts until nearly the middle resting on one foot is probably greater relief to of June. Earlier than this, winter is apt to rethem than resting on both feet, because the bal-turn on its traces, and to blight the opening beauance is then preserved by means of the ligaments which act by their elasticity as matter, and not by living exertion, as is the case with muscles. The distal extremity of the femur, or thigh-bone, where it articulates with the bones of the leg, has a hollow or depression, which, in ordinary cases, receives a projection of the leg-bones, and when this projection is received into the hollow, the bones, taken together, are shorter than when it is displaced. When, however, this joint, which is the proper knee-joint of the bird, though the tarsal-joint is usually so called, is much bent, the projection slides out of the hollow, and bears upon more elevated part; by this means the two bones together become longer, which lightens the ligaments, and the resistance of the elasticity of these makes the leg much firmer at this joint than if it were extended; and consequently, the one leg, bent as far as it will bend at this joint, forms a very steady support. Many birds have this structure, and are able to rest on one leg for a considerable time, but none have it in such perfection as the cranes and storks.

a

The common cranes are understood to build in the northernmost parts of their range, and probably as far to the north as Lapland in some instances. They are very common in Sweden, and particularly abundant in the marshes of Central and Western Russia. In some parts of Poland they invade the crops, especially those of buckwheat, in such numbers, that the farmers find it necessary to employ people to drive them off. The nests are formed in bushes and tufts of tall aquatic plants, close by the margins of the waters. The eggs are only two in number, of a greenish color, and blotched over with brown spots.

The ancients were very familiar with the manners and migrations of these birds, and mixed them up with their superstitions. The positions of the mountains, both in Europe and in Asia, where they approximate the narrow straits which connect the Archipelago and the Black sea, naturally bring the whole of the migrant flocks over Greece; and the plains of Thessaly, and the other more fertile parts, were, and are still, their resting-places, after crossing both the Northern and the Southern seas. In those days the flesh of the crane was a luxury, and it is also recorded among the dishes served up in old times in England. In the old birds it is black and tough, but said to be at least tolerable in the young ones.

THE BOBLINCON.

AMONG the contributions of Washington Irving to the Knickerbocker, is an article treating on the "birds of spring." It concludes as follows:The happiest bird of our spring, however, and one that rivals the European lark, in my estimation, is the Boblincon, or Boblink, as he is commonly called. He arrives at that choice portion of our year, which, in this latitude, answers to the description of the month of May, so often given by the poets. With us it begins about the VOL. IV.-56

This is the chosen season of revelry of the Boblink. He comes amid the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows: and is most in song when clover is in blossom, He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some flaunting weed, and as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich tinkling notes; crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous character. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstacy at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of his paramour; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight.

Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the boblink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season in the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during the livelong day, in that purgatory of boyhood, a school-room, it seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him! No lessons, no tasks, no hateful school; nothing but holyday, frolic, green fields, and the weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo:

"Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy note,
No winter in thy year.

"Oh! could I fly, I'd fly with thee;
We'd make, on joyful wing,
Our annual visit round the globe,
Companions of the spring!"

Farther observation and experience have given me a different idea of this little feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart for the benefit of my schoolboy readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admira

nown of the ortelan. Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! the rusty firelocks of the country are cracking on every side; he sees his companions falling by thousands around him; he is the reed bird, the much sought-for tit-bit of the Pennsylvania epicure.

Does he take warning, and reform? Not he! He wings his flight still farther south, in search of other luxuries. We hear of him gorging himself in the rice-swamps; filling himself with rice, almost to bursting; he can hardly fly for corpu lency. Last stage of his career, we hear of him spitted by dozens, and served up on the table of the gourmand, the most vaunted of southern dainties, the rice-bird of the Carolinas.

tion which I once indulged. I have shown him
only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the
poetical part of his career, when he in a manner
devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoy-
ments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste,
and sensibility and refinement. While this lasted,
he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy
would not fling a stone at him, and the merest
rustic would pause to listen to his strain. But
mark the difference. As the year advances, as
the clover-blossoms disappear, and the spring
fades into summer, his notes cease to vibrate on
the ear. He gradually gives up his elegant tastes
and habits, doffs his poetical and professional suit
of black, assumes a russet or rather dusty garb,
and enters into the gross enjoyments of common Such is the story of the once musical and ad-
vulgar birds. He becomes a bon vivant; a mere mired, but finally sensual and persecuted, Boblink.
gourmand; thinking of nothing but good cheer, It contains a moral worthy the attention of all,
and gourmandizing on the seeds of the long little birds, and little boys; warning them to keep
grasses on which he lately swung and chanted so to those refined and intellectual pursuits, which
musically. He begins to think there is nothing raised him to so high a pitch of popularity, during
like "the joys of the table," if I may be allowed the early part of his career; but to eschew all
to apply that convivial phrase to his indulgences. tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence,
He now grows discontented with plain, everyday which brought this mistaken little bird to an un-
fare, and sets out on a gastronomical tour, in timely end."
search of foreign luxuries. He is to be found in
myriads among the reeds of the Delaware, ban-
queting on their seeds; grows corpulent with
good feeding, and soon acquires the unlucky re-l

little boys and little birds.
Which is all at present from the well-wisher of

GEOFFREY CRAYON.

DATES.

fruit, as it appears suspended from the tree. This In a preceding volume of the Magazine, we fruit, which abounds in Arabia, Persia, and some have given a pictorial representation of the Phe-parts of Africa, is much used by the natives of nix dactylifera, or Date-Palm, and a detailed ac- these several countries, as an article of food, alcount of the tree and its growth and uses. The though in consequence of its indigestible quali

above wood-cut represents a cluster of the ripe ties, their system becomes diseased. It is said

that those who make dates their daily food, become in a while scorbutic, and lose their teeth.

any

This fruit is produced in clusters which grow from the trunk of the tree, between the branches, or, rather, leaves. The form of these clusters is best shown in our engraving. In a good tree, and productive season, there may be from fifteen to twenty of these clusters, each weighing about as many pounds; but this differs with differing circumstances, and, in the differing varieties, of which there are many. The same variation extends to the size and quality of the fruit itself. When perfectly ripe, the most common sort is soft and pulpy, and very sweet, without acidity. But those that are intended to be dried are not allowed to attain their softest condition. Great quantities are dried, and are then very hard, and have a shrunk and shrivelled appearance. They are then of great service as a standing article of food; and, from their hardness and portability, are very valuable to persons on a journey. The date has an exceedingly hard and solid kernel: but, like every other part of this precious tice, this is valuable, forming a most nourishing and acceptable food to camels and other cattle, when ground, or softened by being soaked for two or three days in water. In the date countries, so much of man's subsistence depends upon this fruit, that the season of gathering is watched for with all the anxiety, and attended with all the joy, of harvest or of vintage.

Before they are ripe, dates are rather rough and astringent: when perfectly matured they are much of the nature of the fig, excepting the oblong drupe, or stone, in the middle of the pulp. They are various in color, some being black, some white and some brown or cinnamon color. They vary also in size, some being large and round like an apple, while others are no bigger than a pea. The usual size is somewhat larger than the thumb's end, and the shape oblong. They also vary in quality, and the royal dates of Senegal are superior to any.

Efforts have been made in Italy and the southern provinces of Spain, to cultivate this fruit, but it needs the heat of a tropical sun to bring it to full maturity. Hence all endeavors to rear it upon European soils have proved unavailing.

NEVER employ your authority in its full extent; temper whatever is severe in it by an air of sweetness and good-nature. Neither abuse the fear and respect which your dignity and rank inspire. It will do you honor to adapt the exercise of your power to the circumstances and situation in which you are placed.

How difficult it is to live in the world and to preserve irreproachable manners. It is nevertheless possible; but for this end one has need of a continual attention and watchfulness over one's self.

THE SUN OF THE CONSTITUTION. "While the last members were signing, Dr. Franklin, looking toward the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun.

"I have,' said he, often and often, in the course of the

session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.'"-Democratic Review, March, 1839. Article on the Madison papers.

"T WAS at the hour of summer eve,

The day its brightest death-smile gave,
When they, the mightiest to achieve,
Their signets to our charter gave,
A noble band in yonder hall,
Obedient to their country's call.
Behind the chair where sage debate

Was well controlled by Washington,
Appeared, as if hung out by fate,

A pictured image of the Sun-
That emblem, would it set or shine?
What patriot's eye could then divine!
And he, the sage, at whose command

The forked lightnings left their play,
Was there, and traced with steady hand

A name that ne'er shall pass away:
And when the glorious task was done,
Said proudly-" "Tis a rising sun!"

Yes, now the gloomy hour was o'er,

And this was Freedom's brightest day;
Hope lighted up all hearts once more,

And fears like phantoms, passed away;
A gentle spirit hovered there,
With silence deep as that of prayer.

Ay, 't was a rising sun that peered

Above those purple pictured hills,
A sun whose ray of splendor cheered
The freemen by their distant rills:
A sun whose beams shall never set,
Though nations shall their names forget.

Earth's latest age shall feel its ray,

And millions warm beneath its smiles;
On mountain's peak its gleam shall play,
And gladden the remotest isles;
The fettered serf shall feel its power,
While Kings turn pale, and Tyrant's cower.
As when amid chaotic night,

When earth came rolling, void of form,
Jehovah said, "Let there be light,"

And light came streaming from the storm:
So streamed the ray froin yonder sun,
When freedom's title-deed was done.
'Tis here--t is there-it fills the world,
Though strangely rising from the west;
Fierce lightnings from its face are hurled,
To scathe the tyrant's gleaming crest;
And though it rose o'er hills of blood,
The Magi blessed its dazzling flood.

He who knows the world will not be too bashful. He who knows himself will not be too impudent.