In circling poise, swift as the wings, along,
The then gay land is madden'd all to joy.

THOMSON.

In Lapland, where the ground is too barren to yield corn, or even pasture for cattle, and in winter, when it is entirely covered with snow, the inhabitant would perish on the spot where the cold weather surprizes him, if the Almighty, whose providence is always exercised in supplying our wants, had not given him the rein-deer to transport him from one place to another, to afford him also food and clothing, furnishing, at the same time, in great abundance, to that useful animal, the moss on which it lives. When the winter has set in, the Laplander will yoke his rein-deer to the sledges, and travelling at the rate of about fifty miles a day, soon arrive with. his family at the place where his winter provisions are laid up.

The great law of assembling together during cold weather, which affects birds and several classes of quadrupeds, exerts its influence also on man. The Greenlanders and Samoiedes retire to their large underground habitations, each of which is occupied by five or six families; and, in the more civilized parts of the north of Europe, plays, balls, visitings, and social amuse

ments of various kinds, contribute to raise the spirits and cheer the heart, in spite of the dead, and desolate scenes which nature, at every step, presents to our view.

26

FEBRUARY.

Now shifting gales, with milder influence, blow,
Cloud o'er the skies, and melt the falling snow;
The soften'd earth with fertile moisture teems,
And, freed from icy bonds, down rush the swelling

streams.

THE earlier part of this month may still be reckoned winter, though the cold generally begins to abate. The days are now sensibly lengthened, and the sun has power enough gradually to melt away the ice and snow. The hard weather generally breaks up with a sudden thaw, attended by a south wind and rain, which all at once dissolves the snow. Torrents of water then pour from the hills, every brook is swelled into a large stream, which rushes violently into the rivers; the pavement of ice, with which they are covered, now breaks up in every direction with the noise of thunder; and the floating masses, dashed against barges and bridges, force down

every thing that obstructs their passage: the bed of the river becomes unable to carry off this vast accumulation of water; it swells over the banks, floods the bordering fields, and sweeps away cattle, mills, hay-stacks, gates, trees, and, in short, almost every thing that it reaches; the manure is carried off from the fields, high banks with the trees upon them are undermined and give way, and, in the space of a few hours, very great losses are sustained.

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point,
Blow, hollow-blustering, from the south. Subdued,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.

Spotted the mountains shine, loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
A thousand snow fed torrents rush at once,
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste.

THOMSON.

When the ice, which covers a part of the river Danube, has been broken up by the sun's heat, and carried down the stream, it gradually collects in large masses below the city of Vienna, where the banks become narrower; each block of ice is pushed by

the current against the fragments that have gone before, till, at last, the whole has formed a high wall of ice, which extends quite across, and would effectually stop the course of the water and cause it to inundate the surrounding country, if means were not taken to remove it. A train of artillery is brought, and a steady fire, with heavy cannon-balls, is kept up against it, till the whole is battered down, and has left the channel of the river free.

The frost, however, usually returns for a time, when fresh snow falls, often in great quantities, and thus the weather alternately changes during most part of this month.

Various signs of returning spring occur at different times in February. The wood-lark, one of our earliest and sweetest songsters, often renews his note at the very entrance of the month; not long after rooks begin to pair, and geese to lay. The trush and chaffinch then add to the early music of the groves; wood-owls hoot; near the close of the month partridges begin to couple, and repair the ravages committed on this devoted race during the autumn and winter. Gnats play about, insects swarm under sunny hedges, and some of the earliest of the butterfly tribe