leaves of trees and shrubs. These appearances are very striking even in our own fine forests, but cannot be compared with the magnificent scenes presented to the eye of the enraptured traveller in the primeval woods which shade the equinoctial regions of Africa and America. See T.T. for 1817.-This remark applies also to Asia. No country, perhaps, on the globe unites so many advantages for the sustenance and propagation of animal and vegetable life as Hindostan, whence its products of both are extremely numerous and singularly luxuriant. Those extensive districts which are still in a state of nature, where not sandy deserts, are overgrown with thick forests of stately height, composed of a great variety of timber trees, of which the teak supplies the place of the European oak in its fitness for the purposes of house and ship-building. In these woods a number of creeping plants of extraordinary size and length run from tree to tree in festoons, connecting the whole into one mass of verdure. The river banks and marshy grounds are covered with impenetrable thickets, or jungles, as they are called, the secure resort of game and beasts of prey. In such situations the bamboo reed grows, the most useful for economical purposes of all the natives of hot climates. In the tropical latitudes the family of palms abound, rearing high in the air their naked trunks, crowned with green tufts of light and spreading foliage. Nothing can surpass the beauty and fragrance of the flowering shrubs that decorate the groves; and the skilful botanist alone can reckon up and describe the numerous fruit-bearing trees, and the plants which serve useful purposes in rural economy or the arts'. The following lively picture of an Indian forest, by the late Mr. Pennant, has a particular reference to Ceylon, though in many of its features it applies to all the tropical countries of the east: 'Aikin's Geographical Delineations, vol, ii, pp. 38, 39. 'An Indian forest is a scene the most picturesque that can be imagined: the trees seem perfectly animated; the fantastic monkeys give life to the stronger branches; and the weaker sprays wave over your head, charged with vocal and various plumed inhabitants. It is an error to say that nature has denied melody to the birds of hot climates, and formed them only to please the eye with their gaudy plumage. Ceylon abounds with birds equal in song to those of Europe, which warble among the leaves of trees, grotesque in their appearance, and often laden with the most delicious and salubrious fruit. Birds of the richest colours cross the glades, and troops of peacocks complete the charms of the scene, spreading their plumes to a sun that has ample powers to do them justice. The landscape, in many parts of India, corresponds with the beauties of the animate creation: the mountains are lofty, steep, and broken, but clothed with forests, enlivened with cataracts of a grandeur and figure unknown to this part of the globe. 'But to give a reverse of this enchanting prospect, which it is impossible to enjoy with suitable tranquillity; you are harassed in one season with a burning heat, or, in the other, with deluges of rain; you are tormented with clouds of noxious insects; you dread the spring of the tiger, or the mortal bite of the naja.'-Indian Zoology. Scenes like these on the South American continent are well depicted in the following lines from the 'Missionary,' a poem, in the description of a valley near the Andes: Summer is in its prime ;-the parrot-flocks The chrysomel is a beautiful insect, of which the young women of Chili make necklaces. The humming-bird, along the myrtle bowers, * * Check'ring, with partial shade, the beams of noon, There, through the trunks, with moss and lichens white, And, 'mid the cedar's darksome boughs, illumes, The silent and gradual progress of maturation is now completed; and human industry beholds, with triumph, the rich productions of its toil. The vegetable tribes disclose their infinitely various form of fruit; which term, while, with respect to common use, it is confined to a few peculiar modes of fructification, in the more comprehensive language of the naturalist, includes every product of vegetation, by which the rudiments of a future progeny are developed and separated from the parent plant. Partridges (tetrao perdix) are in great plenty at this season of the year: they are chiefly found in temperate climates, but nowhere in such abundance as in England. Partridges pair early in the spring: about the month of May, the female lays from fourteen to eighteen or twenty eggs, making her nest of 'Birds of Chili, remarkable for the melody, richness, and compass of their notes. 2 The thenca (turdus Thenca) is considered by Molina as a variety of the Virginian thrush (turdus Polyglottus), called the Four-hundred-tongues, from the variety of its notes. 3 A most beautiful climbing plant. The vine is of the size of packthread: it climbs on the trees without attaching itself to them: when it reaches the top, it descends perpendicularly; and as it continues to grow, it extends itself from tree to tree, until it offers to the eye a confused tissue, exhibiting some resemblance to the rigging of a ship.-Molina. dry leaves or grass upon the ground. The young birds learn to run as soon as hatched, frequently encumbered with part of the shell sticking to them; and picking up slugs, grain, ants, &c.-See the 'Partridges, an Elegy,' in T.T. for 1817, p. 282. There are in blow, in this month, nasturtia,china aster, marigolds, sweet peas, mignionette, golden rod, stocks, tangier pea, holy-oak, michaelmas daisy, saffron (crocus sativus), and ivy (hedera helix). Among the maritime plants may be named, the marsh glass-wort (salicornia herbacea), and the seastork's bill (erodium maritimum), on sandy shores; and the officinal marshmallow (althæa officinalis) in salt marshes. Herrings (clupea) pay their annual visit to England in this month, and afford a rich harvest to the inhabitants of its eastern and western coasts. Exclusive of the various methods of preparing this fish for sale, in different countries, an immense quantity of oil is drawn from it, forming a great and important commercial article among the northern nations. Various of the feathered tribe now commence their autumnal music; among these, the thrush, the blackbird, and the woodlark, are now conspicuous. The phalana russula', and the saffron butterfly The MOTH. When dews fall fast, and rosy day While evening breezes bend the future sheaves; Votary of vesper's humid light, The moth, pale wand'rer of the night, From his green cradle comes, amid the whispering leaves. The birds on insect life that feast, Now in their woody coverts rest: The swallow slumbers in his dome of clay, And of the numerous tribes who war On the small denizens of air, The shrieking bat alone is on the wing for prey. Eluding him, on lacey plume The silver moth enjoys the gloom, mus (papilio hyale), appear in this month. Flies ca) abound in our windows. See T.T. for 1816, p. 240; and for 1817, p. 274. For some pretty lines addressed to a fly, see T.T. for 1817, p. 277.-The snake sloughs or casts its skin in this month. The chimney or common swallow (hirundo rustica) disappears about the end of September. The congregating flocks of swallows and martins on house tops, but principally upon the towers of churches on our coast, are very beautiful and amusing in this and the succeeding month. See our last volume, p. 241.Of the migration and torpidity of the swallow, we have already treated at length, in T.T. for 1814, 1815, and 1816; to these volumes, therefore, we refer the ingenious naturalist, and to Mr. Forster's Observations on the Brumal Retreat of the Swallow, third edition, for further information on this curious subject. See also our last volume, p. 243, and the Swallows,' an Elegy, in T.T. for 1817, p. 128. Many of the small billed birds that feed on insects disappear when the cold weather commences. The throstle, the red-wing, and the fieldfare, which migrated in March, now return; and the ring-ouzel Glancing on tremulous wing through twilight bowers, Now quivers on the jasmine bough, And sucks with spiral tongue the balm of sleeping flowers. Yet if from open casement stream The taper's bright aspiring beam, And strike with comet ray his dazzled sight; Nor perfumed leaf, nor honied flower, To check his wild career have power, But to the attracting flame he takes his rapid flight, Round it he darts in dizzy rings, And soon his soft and powdered wings Are singed; and dimmer grow his pearly eyes, C. SMITH. |