Herrings (clupea) pay their annual visit to England in this month, and afford a rich harvest to the inhabitants of its eastern and western coasts. Exolusive of the various methods of preparing this fish for sale in different countries, an immense quantity of oil is drawn from it, forming a great and important commercial article among the northern nations.

We have heard that the Mayor of Yarmouth is obliged, by charter, to send to the king a certain number of herring pies every year, on the commencement of the herring fishery, and that the late king was very fond of them, and always looked for them. Herrings were so scarce at Yarmouth in the year 1563, that green, or fresh herrings, were sold for £9 a last (10,000, six score to the hundred), and upwards. In the year 1611, they sold at £15..15s. the last.

Various of the feathered tribe now commence their autumnal music; among these, the thrush, the blackbird, and the woodlark, are conspicuous. The phalana russula and the saffron butterfly (papilio hyale) appear in this month.

*

The instinctive habits of animals are very remarkable, and continue from year to year, from race to race, with an uniformity that constant observation only can be sensible of, and, probably, the original impulse in the first pair continues with little or no deviation in their progeny of this day. It is very amusing to observe the regularity of the herald-moth (phalana libatrix); it will frequent, for several suecessive autumns, the ceiling of any damp cellar-like outhouse, and remain there, in a state of torpidity, for the whole of the gloomy winter months; and has been regularly found in such situations by the diligent observer of Nature. In the early part of September, these moths regularly retire to their hybernaculum, feeling, perhaps, something like an unpleasant atmospheric chill, where they remain until the warm suns of May awaken them from their

quiet slumbers: from this early habit of retirement, it is possible they have obtaind the name of Herald,' or harbinger of winter.

Flies (musca) now abound in our windows'.

IMPROMPTU.

"
A MICHAELMAS NOTICE TO QUIT.'

To all gad-flies and gnats, famed for even-tide hum,
To the blue-bottles, too, with their gossamer drum;
To all long-legs and moths, thoughtless rogues still at ease,
OLD WINTER sends greeting-health, friendship, and these.
WHEREAS, on complaint lodged before me this day,
That for months back, to wit, from the first day of May,
Various insects, pretenders to beauty and birth,
Have, on venturesome wing, lately traversed the earth,
And, mistaking fair Clara's chaste lips for a rose,
Stung the beauty in public-and frightened her beaux.
And, WHEREAS, on the last sultry evening in June,
The said Clara was harmlessly humming a tune;
A blue-bottle, sprung from some dunghill, no doubt,
Buzzed about her so long-he at last put her out.
And WHEREAS sundry haunches and high-seasoned pies,
And a thousand sweet necks have been o'erran by flies;
In his wisdom, OLD WINTER think's nothing more fit
Than to publish this friendly memento to quit.'

At your peril, ye long-legs, this notice despise!
Hasten hence, ye vile gad-flies! a word to the wise!
Hornets, horse-stingers, wasps, fly so hostile a land,

Or your death-warrant's signed by OLD WINTER'S chill hand.

The autumnal equinox happens on the 22d of September, and at this time the days and nights are equal all over the earth. About this period, heavy storms of wind and rain are experienced, as well as at the vernal equinox.

In our last volume (pp. 234, 265) are some reflections on the SEA,' with poetical illustrations; and as this and the following month are generally devoted to marine excursions, we present our readers with another beautiful gem, to add to those already in their collection.

See our last volume, p. 233, for a poem entitled The Captive Fly.'

A REFLECTION at SEA.

See how, beneath the moonbeam's smile,
Yon little billow heaves its breast,
And foams and sparkles for awhile,

And murm'ring then subsides to rest:
Thus man, the sport of bliss and care,
Rises on Time's eventful sea,
And, having swelled a moment there,
Thus melts into eternity.

T. MOORE.

OCTOBER.

THIS month was called Domitianus in the time of Domitian; but after his death, by the decree of the Senate, it took the name of October, every one hating the name and memory of so detestable a tyrant.

Remarkable Days

In OCTOBER 1821.

1.-SAINT REMIGIUS.

REMIGIUS was born at Landen, where he so closely pursued his studies, that he was supposed to lead a monastic life. After the death of Bennadius, he was, on account of his exemplary piety and extraordinary learning, chosen bishop of Rheims. Having held his bishopric 74 years, he died at 96 years of age, A.D. 535.

6.-SAINT FAITH.

This virgin martyr suffered death under Dacianus, about the year 290, the most cruel torments being inflicted upon her.

*7. 1644.-GALLIES IN FRANCE VISITED. Among the benefits derived from the French Revolution may be named the abolition of the cruel punishment of the gallies and of the infliction of tor

ture; although we find that breaking alive on the wheel has again been revived in Holland! Evelyn's description of his visit to the gallies on the above day will serve to show our readers what a dreadful slavery this punishment was, more than a century and a half since; it is also a true picture of the state of the gallies to the period of their abolition, about the year 1790. We went to visite the gallys, being about 25; the Captaine of the Gally Royal gave us most courteous entertainement in his cabine, the slaves in the interim playing both loud and soft musiq very rarely. Then he shew'd us how he commanded their motions with a nod and his whistle, making them row out. The spectacle was to me new and strange, to see so many hundreds of miserably naked persons, having their heads shaven close and having onely high red bonnets, a payre of course canvas drawers, their whole backs and leggs naked, doubly chayn'd about their middle and leggs, in couples, and made fast to their seates, and all commanded in a trise by an imperious and cruell seaman. One Turke he much favor'd who waited on him in his cabin but with no other dress than the rest, and a chayne lock'd about his leg but not coupled. This gally was richly carv'd and gilded, and most of the rest were very beautifull. After bestowing something on the slaves, the captain sent a band of them to give us musiq at dinner were we lodged. I was amaz'd to contemplate how these miserable catyfs lie in their gally crowded together, yet there was hardly one but had some occupation by which, as leisure and calmes permitted, they gat some little monye, insomuch as some of them have, after many yeares of cruel servitude, been able to purchase their liberty. Their rising forward and falling back at their oare is a miserable spectacle, and the noyse of their chaines with the roaring of the beaten waters has something of strange and fearfull to one unaccustom'd to it. They are rul'd and chastiz'd by strokes on

their backs and soles of theire feete on the least disorder, and without the least humanity; yet are they chereful and full of knavery.' (Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i, p. 70.)

*8. 1674.—SERMON-READERS REPROVED

By authority, in the time of Charles II. 'ViceChancellor and Gentlemen,-Whereas his Majesty is informed that the practice of reading Sermons is generally taken up by the preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before himself: His Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure, that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory, without book; as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most agreeable to the use of foreign churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature of that holy exercise. And, that his Majesty's command in these premises may be duly regarded and observed, his further pleasure is, that the names of all such ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and slothful way of preaching, be, from time to time, signified to me, by the Vice Chancellor for the time being, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure. MONMOUTH, Oct. 8, 1674.'-(See the Statute-book of the University of Cambridge, temp. Car. II, p. 300.)

9. SAINT DENYS.

Saint Denys, or Dionysius, the Areopagite, was converted to Christianity by St. Paul. See Acts xvii. He was, at first, one of the Judges of the celebrated court of the Areopagus, but was afterwards made Bishop of Athens, where he suffered martyrdom for the sake of the gospel.

Wells, in his Geography of the Old and New Testament (vol. ii, p. 259, 8vo), speaking of Dionysius the Areopagite, says, "This Dionysius is said by some to have gone afterwards into France, and there