236 PROVIDENCE :—HAPPINESS OF ANIMALS, long? Other species are running about, with an alacrity in their motions, which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retir ing with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be so much space, filled with young shrimps, in the act of bounding into the air, from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this: if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what there is no reason to doubt, each indi vidual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view! PROVIDENCE:-MIGRATION OF BIRDS. WHILE one part of the creation daily publishes, in the same places, the praise of the Creator, another portion travels to relate his wonders to the whole earth. Couriers traverse the air, glide in the waters, and speed their course across mountains and valleys. These, arriving on the wings of the Spring, enliven its nights with their songs, build their nests among its flowers, and, disappearing with the zephyrs, follow their moveable country from climate to climate; those repair to the habitation of man; as travellers from distant climes, they claim the rights of ancient hospitality. Each follows his inclination in the choice of a host; the Redbreast applies at the cottage: the Swallow knocks at the palace: this daughter of a king still seems attached to grandeur, but to grandeur, melancholy like her fate; she passes the summer amid the ruins of Versailles, and the winter among those of Thebes. Scarcely has she disappeared, when we behold a colony advancing upon the winds of the north, to supply the place of the travellers to the south, that no vacancy may be left in our fields. In a hoary day of autumn, when the north-east wind blows over the plains, and the woods are losing the last remains of their foliage, a numerous troop of wild ducks, all ranged in a line, traverse in silence a melan 238 PROVIDENCE-MIGRATION OF BIRDS. choly sky. If they perceive, while aloft in the air, some Gothic castle surrounded by marshes and by forests, it is there they prepare to descend: they wait till night, making long evolutions over the woods. Soon as the vapours of the eve enshroud the valley, with outstretched neck and whirring wing, they suddenly alight on the waters, which resound with their noise. A general cry, succeeded by profound silence, rises from all the marshes. Guided by a faint light, which, perhaps, gleams through the narrow window of a tower, the travellers approach its walls, favoured by the reeds and by the darkness. There, clapping their wings and screaming amid the murmur of the winds and of the rain, they salute the habitation of man. Among these travellers from the north, there are some who habituate themselves to our manners, and refuse to return to their native land Most of them, however, leave us after a residence of some months: they are attached to the winds and the storms, which tarnish the polish of the waves, and deliver to them that prey which would escape them in transparent waters; they love unknown retreats, and make the circuit of the globe, by a round of solitudes. It is not always in troops that these birds visit our habitations. Sometimes two beauteous strangers, white as snow, arrive with the frosts; they descend in the midst of a heath, in an open place, where it is impossible to approach them without being perceived; after resting a few hours, they again soar above the clouds. You hasten to the spot from which PROVIDENCE-MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 239 they departed, and find nothing but a few feathers, marks of their passage, already dispersed by the wind. Concordances with the scenes of nature, or reasons of utility to man, determine the different migrations of animals. The birds that appear in the months of storms have dismal voices and savage manners, like the season which brings them; they come not to be heard, but to listen; there is something in the dull roaring of the woods that charms their ears. The trees, which mournfully wave their leafless summits, bear only black legions, which have associated for the winter; they have their sentinels and their advanced. guards: frequently a crow, who has seen a hundred winters, the ancient sybil of the deserts, who has survived several generations, remains singly perched on an oak which has grown old with her; there, while all her sisters maintain a profound silence, motionless, and, as it were, full of thought, she delivers prophetic monosyllables, from time to time, to the winds. It is very remarkable that the teal, the duck, the goose, the woodcock, the plover, the lapwing, which serve us for food, all arrive when the earth is bare; while, on the contrary, the foreign birds by which we are visited in the season of fruits, administer only to our pleasures; they are musicians sent to heighten the delights of our banquets. We must, however, except a few, such as the quail and the wood-pigeon, the season for taking which does not commence till after the harvest, and which fatten on our corn, that they may afterwards supply our tables.-Chateaubriand. THE ELDER'S DEATH-BED. "JAMIE, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father, nor thy mother; for that, thou know! est and feelest, is the commandment of God." The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the loving old man; and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather's bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees, and hid her face with her hand. "Oh! if my hus band knew but of this-he would never, never desert his dying father!" And I now knew, that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son. At this affecting time, the Minister took the family Bible on his knees, and said, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fif teenth psalm;" and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses, "Within thy tabernacle, Lord, |