The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 550, June 2, 1832. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ in the interior of North California. They do not exist on the banks of the river Missouri; nor have they been seen in any place east of the Rocky Mountains."

      The general colour of the upper plumage is light hair-brown, mottled and variegated with dark umber-brown and yellowish-white. The under plumage is white and unspotted on the breast and part of the body; but dark umber-brown, approaching to black, on the lower hall of the body, and part of the flanks; the latter towards the vent are marked as on the upper plumage. The under tail coverts are black, broadly tipped with white. The feathers of the thighs and tarsi are light hair-brown, mottled with darker lines. The throat and region of the head is varied with blackish on a white ground. The shafts of all the feathers on the breast are black, rigid, and look like hairs; but those of the scale-like feathers of the sides are white and thicker. The bill and toes are blackish. The bill is thick and strong: the ridge is advanced to a remarkable extent towards the front, and divides the thickset feathers which cover the nostrils by a convex ridge of three quarters of an inch long. This is a very peculiar and important character, since it plainly indicates the analogy of this form to Ramphastos, Buceros,5 and numerous other rasorial types. On each side the breast, the present specimen exhibits two prominent naked protuberances, as in the female bust, perfectly destitute of hair or feathers. On each side of these protuberances, and higher up on the neck, is a tuft of feathers, having their shafts considerably elongated and naked, gently curved, and tipped with a pencil of a few black radii; they are placed much behind the naked protuberances, and do not appear intended to cover them when not inflated. On the sides of the neck, and across the breast, below the protuberances, the feathers are particularly short, rigid, and acute, laying over each other with the same compactness and regularity as the scales of a fish, excepting that their extremities are not rounded, but acutely pointed. Lower down the breast these feathers, however, begin to assume more of the ordinary shape; but the shafts still remain very thick and rigid, while each is terminated by a slender, naked filament, hornlike, shining, and somewhat flattened towards the end, where there are a few obsolete radii. The wings in proportion to the size of the bird, are very short; the lesser quills ending in a point. The tail is rather lengthened and considerably rounded, each feather lanceolate, and gradually attenuated to a fine point. The tarsi are somewhat elevated, thickly clothed with feathers to the base of the toes, and over the membrane which connects them. The length of this bird Mr. Swainson thinks to have been 25 inches. The female bird, it should be added, has neither the scale-like feathers nor projecting shafts of the male.

      The CLAW is that of the PILEATED WOODPECKER, (Picus Dryotomus) Pileatus, SWAINSON, which has much less power than the claw of the typical Woodpecker; the anterior toe (i.e. middle toe,) being longer and stronger than the posterior—a structure the very reverse of that which characterizes the typical species.

      LEGS AND FEET of the ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED GROUSE, (Tetrao Franklinii, DOUGLAS,) which are thickly covered with long and hair-like feathers. The bird inhabits the valleys of the Rocky Mountains from the sources of the Missouri to those of the Mackenzie, and Mr. Douglas informed Dr. Richardson that it is sparingly seen on the elevated platforms which skirt the snowy peaks of Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Baker. He adds, "It runs over the shattered rocks, and among the brushwood with amazing speed, and only uses its wings as a last effort to escape."

      The birds of North America include about 320 species. They are divided into migratory and resident; though comparatively few in the fur countries are strictly entitled to be called resident. The raven and Canadian and short-billed jays were the only species recognised as being equally numerous at their breeding-places in winter and summer. Many of the species which raise two or more broods within the United States rear only one in the fur countries, the shortness of the summer not admitting of their doing more. We have mentioned the number and beauty of the hawks and owls. The white-headed eagle inhabits the fur countries as well as the United States. The melody of the song-birds is described to be exquisite. The verdant lawns and cultivated glades of Europe fail in producing that exhilaration and joyous buoyancy of mind which travellers have experienced in treading the Arctic wilds of America, when their snowy covering had just been replaced by an infant but vigorous vegetation. The duck family are, however, the birds of the greatest importance, as they furnish, in certain seasons of the year, in many extensive districts, almost the only article of food that can be procured. The arrival of the water-fowl, it is said, marks the commencement of spring and diffuses as much joy among the wandering hunters of the Arctic regions, as the harvest or vintage in more genial climates. The period of their emigration southwards again, in large flocks, at the close of summer, is another season of plenty bountifully granted to the natives, and enabling them to encounter the rigour and privations of a northern winter.

      Dr. Richardson acknowledges the liberal assistance afforded him by the Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection of eagles and owls presented by them to the Zoological Society, and exhibiting in the Gardens in the Regent's Park. Such devotion to the advancement of science cannot be too proudly perpetuated in the history of a society established for commercial objects.

      SONNET

TO H–C. ON MY FRIEND H– S– BEING IN LOVE WITH HER(For the Mirror.)

      Thou that art like the sun, that on its way,

      Across the cloudless distance of the skies

      Gives pleasure to us all—no rivalries

      Lessen'ng the love we bear it—as a day

      Of shower-glad April or the month of May,

      Thou that art cheerful—see yon youth that lies

      Weeping for want of sunshine from thine eyes,

      And hope that thou canst only give him—say:

      "Sweet youth, and art thou weeping for a heart

      All passion, joy, and gladness—come unto me,

      Oft by the evening sunset thou shalt woo me,

      And as thou hast the gentleness and art

      Or rather truth-kind nature thou mayst tear it

      From all its other likings, win and wear it."

J.H.H.

      MRS. HEMANS

(To the Editor.)

      I have just been perusing in No. 16, of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, a short and incorrect sketch of that highly-gifted and moral poetess, Mrs. Hemans, "who," the writer says, "first came into public notice about twelve or fourteen years ago;" whereas, her literary career commenced as far back as the year 1809, in an elegantly printed quarto of poems, which were highly spoken of by the present T. Roscoe, Esq. and were dedicated by permission to his late Majesty, when Prince Regent. Permit me to say that this accomplished daughter of the Muse is a native of Denbighshire, North Wales, and was born at the family mansion named "Grwych," about one and a half mile distant from Abergele; and at the period of her first appearance as an authoress, she had not, I think, reached her thirteenth year. I had the pleasure of then being her neighbour, and our Appenine mansion, the Signal Station, at Cave Hill, has been more than once enlivened by Lady, then Miss Felicia Dorothea Browne's society, accompanied by her excellent mother. She has since married – Hemans, Esq., then an Adjutant in the army. A great number of her pieces have appeared in the Monthly Magazine, as well as the New Monthly, and although a pleasing pensiveness and sombre cast of mind seem to pervade her beautifully mental pictures, she was, I may say, noted in her youth for the buoyancy and sprightliness of her conversation and manner, which made her the delight and charm of every society with which she mixed. She likewise (I think in the same year) published an animated poem upon the valour of Spain and her patriotic ally, England. Instead of Mrs. H. residing, as the writer of the above memoir observes, chiefly in London, she has passed the principal years of her life since her removal from Grwych, at a pleasant dwelling, termed "Rose Cottage," СКАЧАТЬ