hapless victims, including my parent, stood ready to be sacrificed. The whole of the women and children were now brought into our hut, and a guard placed at the door; here we remained six hours, during which the most horrid brutalities were practised, until the death of the sufferers closed the scene."

[To be continued.]

SEPTEMBER;

ITS INFLUENCES AND ASSOCIATIONS.

Scan the sober beauty of the corn,

Where on that golden carpet

Walks Mother Autumn,

And mounts her throne of beautiful decay,

O'erhung with flowers, all sickened of the sun."

IN speaking of August in our last Number, we said that it was the month which, above all others, made us feel in their full force those emotions leading us to look up from Nature to Nature's God. We can, however, at no time look abroad upon the face of Creation, without the same sentiment rising in the mind, so wisely and so obviously are the seasons adapted to animate and inanimate existences. September, though bordering on the period of vegetable decay, is perhaps, as far as scenery is concerned, the most beautiful of our months and has appropriately been called the "landscape month." Nothing can exceed the delicacy and harmony of tinting which pervades the woodlands. The brilliant contrasts of green marking the summer foliage are softened down into sober and mellow hues; and there is an air of repose and solemn grandeur spread over the scene, indicative of the change from active life to the decay and gloom of vegetable death. The atmosphere is mild and clear, and has a grey and soft tint that harmonises wonderfully and touchingly with the material world, whilst the sunlight streams down in a flood of mild radiance, and

“There is a harmony

In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which through the summer is not heard nor seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been."

It is the month for contemplation; and the heart must be sear and hard that can, without emotion, go forth amidst the magnificence of

Nature, clad in her robe of ripe beauty, when the changing season is on the point of depriving her of some of her chief glories, and has

already impressed the marks of "beautiful death upon tree and flower and herbage. We may look back with some regret on the freshness of Spring and the glow and fullness of Summer, but neither is calculated to produce such deep impressions on the mind as the sombre majesty of Autumn. It appeals to our sympathies and our hopes, and has a closer hold upon the imagination than any other season. We walk along, communing with ourselves, and find in the fading flower and the ripened fruit symbols of our varied life. We may mourn that the multitude of bright things that have sprung up around us, and have filled the sky with gladness, and covered the earth with beauty, are perishing or departing, but we feel that they have not been in vain. The fruit has succeeded the flower,-the myriads of insects that crowded the atmosphere,

"like golden boats on a sunny sea,"

in all the enjoyment of their brief existence, have, one and all, fulfilled the purposes of their creation, and man and animals have secured their harvest. The God of the Seasons has accomplished His work of Love, and Nature is sinking into the sleep of winter. To a mind properly attuned, the period is one more of hope and of gratified delight than of gloom and dark expectation; to a dejected and misanthropic temper, the sights and sounds of reviving as well as of decaying Nature are alike barren of excitement and of hallowed influences. Coleridge, the imaginative and the metaphysical, tinctured with his own gloomy feelings even Spring

" All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair-
The bees are stirring-birds upon the wing;
And Winter, slumbering in the opening air,
Wears on its smiling face a dream of Spring:
And I the while, the sole unbusied thing,

Nor honey make-nor pair-nor build-nor sing.
Yet, well I ken the haunts where amaranths blow-
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths !-bloom for whom ye may !
With lips unbrightened,-wreathless brow I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope, without an object, cannot live."

And such may be the case with a dreamy and abstracted reasoner, but not so with him who walks forth amidst the works of God, open to the salutary and happy hopes that arise from their contemplation -hopes that have even tangible objects to keep them in play, in the eternal memorials of goodness and love exhibited by the changes in the Seasons.

Among the phenomena of September, the migration of our summer feathered visitors is, perhaps, the most striking. There is

something mysteriously impressive in the preparatory assemblage of swallows and other birds, when on the point of setting out on their annual departure. We see them wheeling high in the air in multitudes, filling the evening sky with the music of their voices: and this occurs three or four days, and then all disappear. We miss their twitter on the house and tree-tops-we miss their joyous and agile motions when on the wing: no longer is the patient angler startled from his reverie by the splash of these sporting creatures— no longer is the solitary rambler amused by the rapid and graceful flights of these "children of the sun;" and with them departs much of the activity of life, which has hitherto filled the earth and the air with gladness. Many insects have utterly perished, leaving only their ova as the records of their existence; and others have already betaken themselves to their winter-quarters, or are making preparations for their long imprisonment. The instinct of migration, and of hybernation, have always seemed to us amongst the most remarkable proofs of prospective design; indeed all the operations of instinct, differing as they do so widely from the workings of our own reasoning powers, both in their certainty and their effects, make the examination of their phenomena extremely interesting. Confinement does not lessen the disposition for departure which leads away so many of our winged choristers. If caged, they always display the impulse for flight at the usual periods, fluttering and beating the roofs of their prisons, often for hours together. From watching them during their winter confinement, we also learn that their removal from, and return to, our own shores, is not the only change of place. The same uneasiness and desire for escape is shown several times, indicating doubtless that the "free denizens of the air are again upon the wing. It is remarkable how little we know of the localities frequented by the migrating tribes of birds which proceed southerly: their coming and going is so remarkable an occurrence, that it cannot fail to attract the attention of the most ignorant and uncivilised people; and yet the notices brought by travellers from the places where they are supposed to inhabit, in their absence from us, are exceedingly meagre and hardly worthy of credit; that they do leave us is an undoubted factthe ancient belief of their hybernating being inconsistent with their physical structure, which renders it impossible for them to remain either clustered in ponds, or buried in caves or coal-mines; and actual observation bears witness of their having been seen crossing the Spanish Sierras, and the narrow channel of the Mediterranean, near Gibraltar. That their first flight lands them on the northwestern shores of Africa would seem to be determined, but what becomes of them afterwards we know nothing certain. They come to us from some far country-the heralds of summer; and they depart from us probably to usher in a similar genial season to other people. We may claim them, however, as natives; they breed and rear their young with us-the most unequivocal sign that this is their home.

There is another circumstance connected with the feathered tribe

during September, which is worthy of note-and this is, the revival of song in several of our native birds. One wide and universal burst of vocal harmony saluted the ear in Spring

66

No love-shade but rings

With chattering birds' delicious murmurings;"

and the very spirit of love and music was abroad in the world. This jubilee gradually subsides as the great business of building and incubation proceeds; and as soon as the first broods appear, the parents have little leisure for sport or pastime, their most unremitting attention being required to satisfy the wants of their numerous families. Little is, therefore, heard of them during the Summer beyond signal notes, and the perpetual chuttering of the feeders. Now all this labour is completed-the young birds have already become free citizens of the feathered kingdom, and the voice of gladness again rings through the shade ;-but it is a voice of sobered joy, and wanting in that tone of triumphant revelry which marked the pairing and building season. The chief of these Autumnal choristers are the thrush, the wood-lark, and the blackbird-the fine full and organ-like voice of the latter sounding through the still twilight in a strain of rich melody.

September is not less the time of harvest with man than it is with many of our animals. Most seeds are ripe during this month; and millions of granaries are furnished for the winter by the field-mice, dormice, squirrels, and other of our lesser quadrupeds. The hazelnut, oak and beech-mast corn, and various kinds of hard seeds, fitted for storing, are diligently sought for, and carefully housed by the provident animals. These creatures, though occasionally becoming torpid, are easily roused from their sleep, and a fine open day or two brings them peeping out from their winter-quarters; and hence arises the necessity for laying up a supply of food, as those animals, which in strictness are called hybernating, and which remain wrapped in a profound sleep for months together, lay up as provision. A like beautiful adaptation of the wants and habits of animals may be observed in the case of the bat. This sinks into partial torpidity; but a mild evening is often sufficient to rouse it, and it comes flitting on leathern wing" from its haunt in chimney or cave. We might suppose, that as insects have vanished, the bat had either no need for food during these wakeful hours, or that it must search in vain for its accustomed prey. But no;-it must feed; and the God who has thus constituted it, has also provided it with food:-as the same temperature and atmospheric conditions which arouse the bat, arouse likewise multitudes of gnats -the favourite and principal prey of the most curious of the mammalia.

September is one of the months more particularly devoted to outdoor amusements and to country excursions. The temperature is favourable to exercise, and the weather generally fine and steady. A residence by the sea-side, when health and rational amusement are sought after, is beneficial equally to the moral and the physical man.

An intercourse with Nature is purifying to the heart, and highly favourable to the developement of holy and religious imaginings. Nor flower-nor weed-nor shell-nor fading leaf-nor grey morning -nor glorious sunset-can come before the eye, without bringing their appropriate and healthy trains of thought. How beautifully has Bryant spoken of the gentian, now to be found abundantly:

"Thou blossom, bright with Autumn dew,

And colour'd with the Heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night:

Thou comest not when the violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen;
When columbines, in purple drest,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest:

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare, and birds are flown;
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near its end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,-
Blue-blue-as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hours of death draw nigh to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to Heav'n as I depart."

Yes! sacred and hallowing, yet joyous and soothing, are the
emotions that spring up within us
on looking upon the face of
Nature,-

"When song speaks like a spirit from the trees,
Whose kindled greenness hath a golden glow;
When clear as music rill and river flow,-
With trembling hues, all changeful, tinted o'er
By that bright pencil, which good Spirits know
Alike in earth and heavens.'