I recommend it therefore, again and again, to those curious astronomers who may have an opportunity of observing these things when I am dead, that they would remember these admonitions, and diligently apply themselves with all their might to the making of the necessary observations; in which 'I earnestly wish them all imaginable success: in the first place, that they may not, by the unseasonableness of a clouded sky, be deprived of this most desirable sight; and then, that having ascertained with more exactness the magnitudes of the planetary orbits, it may redound to their immortal fame and glory.'

This excellent astronomer then concludes this part of his Dissertation, by observing, Since seventeen minutes of time answer to twelve seconds and a half of solar parallax, for every second of parallax there will arise a difference of more than eighty seconds of time; so that if we have this difference true to two seconds, it will be certain what the Sun's parallax is, to within a fortieth part of a second; and therefore his distance will be determined to within a five hundredth part at least, if the parallax be not found less than we have supposed; for forty times twelve and a half is five hundred.'

[To be continued.]

The Naturalist's Diary

For JANUARY 1818.

Pale rugged winter, bending o'er his tread,
His grizzled hair, bedropt with icy dew;
His eyes, a dusky light, congealed and dead;
His robe, a tinge of bright ethereal blue:
His train, a motleyed, sanguine, sable cloud,
He limps along the russet, dreary moor;
While rising whirlwinds, blasting, keen, and loud,
Roll the white surges to the sounding shore.

WINTER now unfolds his awful train, vapours, clouds and storms;' and all nature appears but one

dreary waste yet cold and gloomy as this season usually is, it offers to the grateful mind many an interesting subject of contemplation. Among these, may be mentioned the effects of the hoar-frost, or of the dew or mist frozen. This adheres to every object on which it falls, and produces figures of incomparable beauty and elegance. Every twig and blade of grass is beset by it with innumerable glittering pearly drops, or silver plumage. These appearances are still more striking, the farther we proceed to the north. It sometimes happens, that a sudden shower of rain falls during a frost, and immediately turns to ice, a circumstance which has been described in some beautiful lines, in our volume for 1815, p. 73.

But winter, in our temperate regions, exhibits very few phenomena, in comparison with what is visible in the arctic circle. Thomson, therefore, has judiciously enriched his noble conclusion of the Seasons with all the circumstances of picturesque beauty, or terrific grandeur, that could be borrowed from scenes far remote from us. The famished troops of wolves pouring from the Alps; the mountains of snow rolling down the precipices of the same countries; the dreary plains over which the Laplander urges his reindeer; the wonders of the icy sea; and volcanoes flaming through a waste of snow; are objects selected, with the greatest propriety, from all that nature presents most singular and striking in the various domains of boreal cold and desolation; where

Winter, armed with terrors here unknown,
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne;

Piles up his atores amid the frozen waste,
And bids the mountains he has built, stand fast;
Beckons the legions of his storms away

From happier scenes to make the land a prey;
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won,
And scorns to share it with the distant sun.

COWPER.

The most intense cold in England is usually felt in the month of January; and the weather is either

bright with frost, or foggy with much snow. Of this phenomenon, and its important services to vegetation, we have already spoken at large in our former volumes. A shower of snow is well described by Homer, in the following lines, as translated by Pope :

In Winter's bleak uncomfortable reign

A snowy inundation hides the plain;

Jove stills the winds, and bids the skies to sleep;
Then pours the silent tempest thick and deep:
And first the mountain tops are covered o'er,
Then the green fields, and then the sandy shore;
Bent with the weight the nodding woods are seen,
And one bright waste hides all the works of men:
The circling seas alone, absorbing all,
Drink the dissolving fleeces as they fall.

The inclemency of the season now compels the numerous tribes of birds to quit their retreats in search of food. The redbreast (sylvia rubecula), the only bird that confides in man, begins to sing. Of the docility of the robin we have a pleasing instance given by Miss Charlotte Smith. Two years ago,' says she, towards the close of the month of August, a robin frequented the drawing-room at B., and became in the course of the winter so tame, that as soon as the windows were open in the morning he used to come in, and seemed to consider it as his domicile, though he always roosted among the shrubs near the window. On being called, he readily made his ap

But this is not always the case. As a proof of the occasional mildness of the season, the following plants were observed in blossom upon the 30th January 1817, in a garden in the neighbourhood of Glasgow: wall-flower, stock, primrose, cowslip, polyanthus, daisy, hepatica, crocus, christmas-rose, green hellebore, winter aconite, white coltsfoot, whitlow grass, scurvygrass, golden saxifrage, and early flowering heath; besides which many gooseberry bushes, currants, roses, honeysuckles, and even some plants of hawthorn, had already unfolded their leaves. A butterfly was seen in Carlisle, about the 20th, on the wing, in a very healthy condition. There were also two peartrees, in a garden, in full blossom.

pearance, and used to sit and sing at the back of a chair, or on the piano forte. He was a constant attendant at the breakfast table, and expected to be fed like a domestic animal; for when we went out for a few days, he resorted to the offices, and followed the servants into the larder. My pretty robin, however, was a very Turk in disposition, and would suffer no brother near the throne; for he drove away, with every mark of resentment, any of his compatriots, who during the hard weather showed any inclination to share the advantages he had appropriated to himself; of which indeed he seemed to feel all the value, for, as winter advanced, he became so familiar as to sit and sing on my daughter's shoulder, and appeared to have totally lost all the apprehensions of a wild bird. If he chose to go out, instead of beating himself against the window, he sat on the edge of the frame till it was opened for him; or, taking an opportunity when the door was open, he flew through the greenhouse or through the passages, till he found his way out. He was a great favourite as well in the kitchen, as in the parlour and it was with general regret, that early in the spring he was missed, and never returned. Had he retired to build, as robins are said to do, in woods and copses, he would not have gone far from the house, around which there were so many thickets and shrubs, and where it is probable he was bred. It is therefore most likely, that, being so tame and fearless, he was destroyed by a cat'.'

From snowy plains, and icy sprays,

From moonless nights, and sunless days,
Welcome, poor bird! I'll cherish thee;
I love thee, for thou trustest me.
Thrice welcome, helpless, panting guest!
Fondly I'll warm thee in my breast :—
How quick thy little heart is beating!
As if its brother flutterer greeting.

■ Conversations on Natural Hist., vol. i, p. 165, where will be found the well-known little poem called 'The Robin's Petition.'

Thou need'st not dread a captive's doom;
No! freely flutter round my room;
Perch on my lute's remaining string,
And sweetly of sweet summer sing.
That note, that summer note, I know;
It wakes, at once, and soothes my woe,
I see those woods, I see that stream,
I see, ah, still prolong the dream!
Still, with thy song, those scenes renew,
Though through my tears they reach my view.

GRAHAME.

About the beginning of the month, larks (alauda arvensis) congregate, and fly to the warm stubble for shelter; and the nut-hatch (sitta europaea) is heard. The shell-less snail or slug (limax) makes its appearance, and commences its depredations on garden plants and green wheat. The missel-thrush (turdus viscivorus) begins its song. The hedge-sparrow (sylvia modularis), and the thrush (turdus musicus), begin to sing. The wren, also, pipes her perennial lay,' even among the flakes of snow. The titmouse (parus) pulls straw out of the thatch, in search of insects; linnets (fringilla linota) congregate; and rooks (corvus frugilegus) resort to their nest trees. Pullets begin to lay; young lambs are dropped now. The house-sparrow (fringilla domestica) chirps ; the bat (vespertilio) appears; spiders shoot out their webs; and the blackbird (turdus merula) whistles. The fieldfares, red-wings, skylarks, and titlarks, resort to watered meadows for food, and are, in part, supported by the gnats which are on the snow, near the water. The tops of tender turnips and ivy-berries afford food for the graminivorous birds, as the ringdove, &c. Earth-worms lie out on the ground, and the shell-snail (helix memoralis) appears.

The SNAIL.

[From the French of M. Arnault.] With friends, with family unblest, Condemned alone to dwell;

If danger's least alarm molest,

He shrinks within his cell.