weigh down his pocket; but I knew that England was a country where they believed in making things solid and durable, and I supposed it was quite natural that cabbies should present their passengers with metal numbers instead of paper ones; so holding the thing gingerly in my hand, I marched tranquilly up the steps of my friend's house.

I have seen in Italy and elsewhere various pictures of the descent of the fallen and condemned, but I think even Michelangelo might have caught a new inspiration from the descent of my cabby. He plunged - I can think of no other word-down from his height, tore the badge from my trembling fingers, and shook his hard and brawny fist within the eighth of an inch of my tip-tilted nose.

"'Ow dare you," he screamed, “'ow dare you be makin' hoff with my badge? I'll 'ave you up, hif you don't mind your heye."

And, indeed, I thought my eye very likely to need minding. But he mounted his perch again, badge in hand, and poured out imprecations like a flood, while I pulled frantically at bell and knocker. When at last I was in my friend's drawing-room, I told my troublous tale.

"Oh, I hope you have his number?" said my host.

"No; he took it away, as I am telling you."

Oh, but don't you remember it? you should have taken it down with a pencil."

Then I discovered what my mistake had been. · Random Rambles.

NEXT YEAR.

The lark is singing gayly in the meadow, the sun is rising o'er the dark blue hills;

But she is gone, the music of whose talking was sweeter than the voice of summer rills.

Sometimes I see the bluebells of the forest, and think of her blue eyes;

Sometimes I seem to hear the rustle of her garments; 'tis but the wind's low sighs.

I see the sunbeams trail along the orchard, and fall in thought to tangling up her hair;

And sometimes round the sinless lips of childhood breaks forth a smile, such as she used to wear;

But never any pleasant thing, around, above us, seems to me like her love

More lofty than the skies that bend and brighten o'er us, more constant than the dove.

She walks no more beside me in the morning, she meets me not on any summer eve,

"Oh,

But once at night I heard a low voice calling
faithful friend, thou hast not long to grieve!
Next year, when larks are singing gayly in the meadow,
I shall not hear their tone;

But she in the dim, far-off country of the stranger will walk no more alone.

IN THE RANKS.

His death-blow struck him there in the ranks
There in the ranks, with his face to the foe:
Did his dying lips mutter curses or thanks?
No one will know.

Still he marched on - he with the rest —
Still he marched on, with his face to the foe,
To the day's bitter business sternly addrest:
Dead did they know?

When the day was over, the fierce fight was done,
His cheeks were red with the summer glow,
And they crowned him there with their laurels won:
Dead did he know?

Laurels or roses all one to him now;
What to a dead man is glory or glow?
Rose-wreaths for love, or a crown on his brow?
Dead does he know?

And yet you will see him march on with the rest-
No man of them all makes a more gallant show
In the thick of the tumult jostled and prest:

MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

How shall I here her placid picture paint
With touch that shall be delicate, yet sure?
Soft hair above a brow so high and pure
Years have not soiled it with an earthly taint,
Needing no aureole to prove her saint;

Firm mind that no temptation could allure;
Soul strong to do, heart stronger to endure;
And calm, sweet lips that uttered no complaint.

So I have seen her, in my darkest days

And when her own most sacred ties were riven,
Walk tranquilly in self-denying ways,

Asking for strength, and sure it would be given;
Filling her life with lowly prayer, high praise
So shall I see her, if we meet in heaven.

UDIE, ROBERT, a British scientist; born in Forfarshire, Scotland, in 1777; died at London in 1842. He was self-educated, and in 1802 was appointed Professor of Gaelic and Teacher of Drawing at Inverness Academy. In 1820 he went to London, and became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. He published many popular works, including books on natural history and astronomy. Among his works are The British Naturalist (1828); Feathered Tribes of the British Islands (1833); The Elements; the Heavens, the Earth, the Air, the Sea (1837); Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature (1839); Man as a Moral and Accountable Being,

Man in His Physical Structure and Adaptation, and Man in His Relations to Society (1840).

THE SKYLARK.

The skylark, or, as is more accurately expressed by the specific name, the field-lark" (only that name has been misapplied to the field-pippit), is the most universal of the British songsters. It inhabits near the dwellings of man, rather than in the bleak wastes, because neither the seeds nor the insects which are produced in these are suited for it; but it inhabits the peopled districts abundantly in all their variety of latitude, soil, and climate; and though it may have been previously unknown there, when man has turned the furrow on the waste, and replaced the heath, the moss and the rush by a more kindly vegetation, the lark is sure to come with its song of gratitude, to reveillée him to the field betimes, and cheer his labors the livelong day. Larks, from their vast numbers, flock much and fly far in the winter, and flock more to the uplands in the middle of England, where much rain usually falls in the summer, than to the dryer and warmer places near the shores; but so true as they are to their time, that, be it in the south, the centre, or the north, the lark is always ready, on the first gleamy day of the year, to mount to its watch-tower, in the upper sky, and proclaim the coming of the vernal season. It is, in fact, more joyant in the sun, more inspirable by the life which the solar influence diffuses through the atmosphere, than almost any other creature: not a spring air can sport, not a breeze of morn can play, not an exhalation of freshness from opening bud or softening clod can ascend, without note of it being taken and proclaimed by this all-sentient index to the progress of nature. And the form and manner of the indication are as delightful as the principle is true. The lark rises not like most birds, which climb the air upon one slope, by a succession of leaps, as if a heavy body were raised by a succession of efforts, or steps; with passes between, it turns upward like a vapor, borne lightly on the atmosphere, and yielding to the motions of that, as other vapors do. Its course is a spiral, gradually

enlarging; and seen on the side, it is as if it were keeping the boundary of a pillar of ascending smoke, always on the surface of that logarithmic column (or, funnel, rather), which is the only figure that, on a narrow base, and spreading as it ascends, satisfies the eye with its stability and self-balancing in the thin and invisible fluid. Nor can it seem otherwise, for it is true to nature. In the case of smoke or vapor, it diffuses itself in the exact proportion as the density, or power of support in the air diminishes; and the lark widens the volutions of its spiral in the very same proportion. Of course it does so only when perfectly free from disturbance or alarm, because either of these is a new element in the cause, and as such it must modify the effect. When equally undisturbed, the descent is by a reversal of the same spiral; and when that is the case, the song is continued during the whole time that the bird is in the air.

The accordance of the song with the mode of the ascent and descent is also worthy of notice. When the volutions of the spiral are narrow, and the bird changing its altitude rapidly in proportion to the whole quantity of flight, the song is partially suppressed, and it swells as the spiral widens, and sinks as it contracts; so that though the notes may be the same, it is only when the lark sings poised at the same height that it sings in a uniform key. It gives a swelling song as it ascends, and a sinking one as it comes down; and even if it take but one wheel in the air, as that wheel includes either an ascent or a descent, it varies the pitch of the song.

The song of the lark, besides being a most accessible and delightful subject for common observation, is a very curious one for the physiologist. Everyone in the least conversant with the structure of birds must be aware that, with them, the organs of intonation and modulation are inward, deriving little assistance from the tongue, and none or next to none from the mandibles of the bill. The wind-pipe is the musical organ, and it is often very curiously formed. Birds require that organ less for breathing than other animals having a windpipe and lungs because of the air-cells and breathing-tubes with which all parts of their bodies (even their bones) are furnished.