beneath their expanded membrane, raised the wings from the surface, and seemed for the first time to endow them with vitality. They flapped harshly once or twice upon the waves, and the head rose slowly and heavily from the lake.

An agony of fear seized upon the gazing parricides, but the supernatural creation made no movement to injure them. It only remained balancing itself over the lake, and casting a shadow from its wings that wrapped the valley in gloom. But dreadful was it beneath their withering shade to watch that terrific monster, hovering like a falcon for the stoop, and know not upon what victim it might descend. It was then that they who had sown the gory seed from which it sprung to life, with one impulse sought to escape its presence by flight. Herding together like a troop of deer when the panther is prowling by, they rushed in a body from the scene. But the flapping of the demon pinions was soon heard behind them, and the winged head was henceforth on their track wheresoever it led.

In vain did they cross one mountain barrier after another-plunge into the rocky gorge or thread the mazy swamp to escape their fiendish watcher. The Flying Head would rise on tireless wings over the loftiest summit, or dash in arrowy flight through the narrowest passes without furling its pinions; while their sullen threshing would be heard even in those vine-webbed thickets, where the little ground bird can scarcely make its way. The very caverns of the earth were no protection to the parricides from its presence; for scarcely would they think they had found a refuge in some sparry cell, when, poised midway between the ceiling and the floor, they would behold the Flying Head glaring upon them. Sleeping or waking, the monster was ever near they paused to rest, but the rushing of its wings, as it swept around their resting-place in never-ending circles, prevented them from finding forgetfulness in repose; or, if in spite of those blighting pinions that ever fanned them, fatigue did at moments plunge them in uneasy slumbers, the glances of the Flying Head would pierce their very eyelids, and steep their dreams in horror.

What was the ultimate fate of that band of parricides no one has ever known. Some say that the Master of Life kept them always young, in order that their capability of suffering might never wear out; and these insist that the Flying Head is still pursuing them over the great prairies of the Far West. Others aver that the glances of the Flying Head turned each of them gradually into stone, and these say that their forms, though altered by the wearing of the rains in the lapse of long years, may still be recognized in those upright rocks which stand like human figures along the shores of some of the neighboring lakes; though most Indians have another way of accounting for these figures. Certain it is, however, that the Flying Head always

comes back to this part of the country about the times of the Equinox ; and some say even that you may alway hear the flapping of its wings whenever such a storm as that we have just weathered is brewing."

The old hunter had finished his story; but my companions were still anxious that he should protract the narrative, and give us the account of the grotesque forms to which he had alluded as being found among these hills. These, however, he told us more properly belonged to another legend, which he subsequently related, and which may hereafter endeavor to recall. C. F. H.

I

THE ALTAR OF AMMON.*

Scimus et hoc nobis non altius inseret Ammon.

LUCAN PHARS. lib. ix. ver. 572.

Mrs. Malaprop.—I own the soft impeachment. Pardon my camelion blushes. I am Delia,

Sir Lucius. -- You Dalia! Pho! Pho! Be aisy.

Mrs. Mal. Why, you barbarous Vandyke-those letters are mine.

;

THE RIVALS.

LIE there, Coleridge, and torment me no more. I have read that book till I am absolutely dizzy with thought; - my head seethes like a cauldron I must put myself upon the use of intellectual diluents - mental slops-till I get relief from this reflecting plethora. What shall I take? Oh, I have it. Diavolo! bring me the papers the country papers I mean, throw some coal upon that fire, and when I fall asleep cover me up with that cloak. Mercy upon me what a pile never mind, throw them all upon the floor beside the sofa. vanish. Now for the demulcents. Here is the Monon

man.

So

:

gehela Watchman "Dreadful Accident". "Cow cut in two by a rail-road Car"—"Butchery." Bah! a pun-away with the WatchWhat comes next? "Rail-road from Worcester to "price per mile" — "level" — "car"-"transportation" very good project I have no doubt. Well, what next? "Pity for Priam, arising not from compassion, but from a sudden indefinable likeness springing up in his mind between the grey-haired Trojan praying for the body of Hector, and the bereaved Peleus who must one day weep for his own fall in that remote Argos, which he knows he shall never see". really that is not bad. Where did our country friend pick up that pretty piece of Balaam "Ammon" "Ammon" who can he be? Reader, it is not our wont to admit thee, dearly loved though thou art, into this our little sanctum - but since thou art here, we will have no secrets, but frankly confessignorance ; —yes, we are ignorant; we know not who this Am

* We know not to whom we are indebted for our apotheosis, as clearly established in the above article, certainly to some one who has familiar access to our editorial table; and who, in temporarily withdrawing several papers which we feared had disappeared altogether, has returned them in a setting that adds much to their value. Ammon welcomes him to the very penetralia of his temple. - EDS. AM. MON.

mon is. But we will know, and thou shalt know. Diavolo! Diavolo! hand me Lempriere. Not that one, Imp of darkness! the large book bound in Russia, that is it, now off! Here we shall find this same Ammon for I take it for granted he is one of the illustrious dead - let us see.

"Ammon. Father of the Ammonites-enemies of Israel."

It cannot be he; let us look further.

Ammonius Saccus. "Founder of the Eclectic School among his disciples-Longinus." This is doubtless the man-though how the wisdom of Saccus Ammonius came to be transplanted into the Tone wanta Reflector, passes judgment-let us see if he has any more as good. Why, here is a whole column of little extracts, and all from Ammon. The first is in verse:

"Had ye but known your day of grace, while still
Jehovah's mercy paused your doom to seal."

This can't be from Saccus Ammonius, for the blind idiot deserted the Christian religion and turned Pagan. We must look again into Lempriere and see if there are any more Ammons. Am-Am-ah, here it is.

"Ammonius Lavinius. - A Carthusian monk, much esteemed by Erasmus ;" that is the man beyond a doubt. "Carthusian monk ;" I dare say the editor of the Tonewanta Reflector is a Catholic, or perhaps some neighboring Jesuit gets up his Balaam for him — they are up to all such ways and means of acquiring influence, those Jesuits, Cunning dogs! But let us look at another.

Ammonius.

"Surgeon-lithotomist :" it can't be this man. Ammonius Andrew. 66 Native of Lucca- fled to England" — on account of his religion, doubtless" patronized by Sir Thomas More." This may be the man, though I should scarce think Sir Thomas would have allowed a protegé of his to be very hard upon the Romish priests. We will look at another extract before we make up our minds.

"From the days of Cowper to those of Byron." Hah! "Crabbe," "Elliott." You see it is not Sir Thomas's friend, after all. Reader, we are at fault; this Ammon is past our finding out: we will try one more extract and then give him up. "While Che-che-gwa was loading his rifle ;" hum! "sable enemy;" heh? it is impossible! and yet "Muckwaw desperately wounded;" it is stay, there is surely some mistake; "taken effect in the spine;" I have it "poor animal" 'tis he "piteous groans;" is not that droll? " whizzing hatchet❞— 'tis the very thing; "Indian asked pardon”—and so do

we of you, gentle reader, for having bewildered you and ourselves through so much of Balaam, and so many articles in the Biographical Dictionary in search of one whom we might have found with less trouble. Reader, know that Ammon, as we have just found out, indicates neither the father of the Ammonites nor the teacher of Longinus, neither the friend of Erasmus nor the protegê of Sir Thomas More, Am Mon (as it should have been written) indicates American Monthly. Yes- 'tis true-Am mon-and why not? Jupiter was called Ammon! It shall be so; the Magazine shall be deified under that name; and this shall be the Temple of Ammon: here will he receive the offerings of the faithful from every clime-homage in prose — adoration in verse.