something. Not that I would pretend to understand their language like a vizier, who, by the recital of a conversation which passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan, before delighting in conquest and devastation; but I would be thought only to mean, that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to express their various passions, wants, and feelings, such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally eloquent; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in their utterance, while others are confined to a few important sounds; no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The language of birds is very ancient, and like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood.

The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and piercing; and about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often assured by a curious observer of nature, who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vor humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males; they use also a quick call and an horrible scream; and can snore and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods to echo; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt sometimes, in the gaiety of their hearts, to sing, but with no great success; the parrot kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the woodpecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill alarm, bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially the nocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious,- —as cranes, wild geese, wild ducks, and the like: their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as much as can be expected; for it would be endless to instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation. We shall, therefore, confine the remainder of this letter to the few domestic

fowls of our yards, which are most known, and, therefore, best understood. And first, the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear; the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking; and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians assert: the hiss, also, of the gander is formidable, and full of menace, and 'protective of his young.' Among ducks, the sexual distinction of voice is remarkable; for, while the quack of the female is loud and sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward, and harsh, and feeble, and scarce discernible. The cock turkey struts and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner: he hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood, she keeps a watchful eye; and if a bird of prey appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look; but if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled.

No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression, and so copious a language, as common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize its prey with little twitterings of complacency; but if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh, and expressive of disapprobation and a sense of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay, she intimates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their life, that of laying seems to be the most important; for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new relation demands a new language; she then runs clucking and screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary: if he finds food, he calls a favourite hen to partake; and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has at command his amorous phrases, and his terms of defiance. But the sound by which he is best known is his crowing: by this he has been distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night.

Thus the poet elegantly styles him

the crested cock, whose clarion sounds The silent hours.

A neighbouring gentleman, one summer, had lost most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between a fagot pile and the end of his house to the place where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Resentment suggested the law of retaliation; he, therefore, clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued; the expressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired, were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before. The exasperated matrons upbraided-they execrated-they insulted-they triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces.

MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES IN VULGAR AND DECIMAL

FRACTIONS.

(1) Find the value of (113-79-35) × 61 × (91÷34); and of 2÷13 + (3 of 21).

(2) A person owes £5 10s. 6d. to each of 6 creditors; he pays one of his debt, to another, to another 7, to another, to another, and to another 17; how much does he still owe altogether? (3) If of a ship be worth £25,960 16s. 7d., what share is worth £17,842 19s. 6d. ?

(4) If 2 lbs. of tea cost 8964 of 10s., what is the value of 36728 lbs. ? (5) Multiply £528 3 fl. 4 c. by 28, divide the product by 34, and

reduce the result thus obtained to the ordinary coinage. (6) How much land will supply 65 horses with hay and oats, if one horse consume annually the produce of 6 a. 2 r. 28 p.?

CORAL ISLANDS (ATOLLS AND LAGOONS).

(From Physical Geography,' by Mrs. Somerville.)

de-tri'-tus (Lat.), that which is worn

away

ex-u'-ber-ant, abundant, plenteous
e'-lon-gate, to lengthen, to draw out
di-am'-e-ter, a line drawn through the
centre of a circle terminated both ways
by the circumference

con-tin-u'-i-ty, uninterrupted connection
lim'-pid, clear, pure

un-fath'-om-a-ble, that cannot be sounded by a line

a-nal'-o-gy, resemblance, similarity, proportion

sub-ma-rine', being or acting under the

sea

pol'-y-pus (Lat.) (pl. pol'-y-pi), a sca animal with many feet

AN atoll, or lagoon island, consists of a chaplet or ring of coral, enclosing a lagoon, or portion of the ocean, in its centre.

The average breadth of the part of the ring above the surface of the sea is about a quarter of a mile, oftener less, and it seldom rises higher than from 6 to 10 or 12 feet above the waves. Hence the lagoon islands are not discernible at a very small distance, unless when they are covered with the cocoa-nut, palm, or the pandana, which is frequently the case. On the outer side this ring or circlet shelves down to the distance of 100 or 200 yards from its edge, so that the sea gradually deepens to 25 fathoms, beyond which the sides plunge at once into the unfathomable depths of the ocean, with a more rapid descent than the cone of any volcano. Even at the small distance of some hundred yards, no bottom has been found with a sounding-line a mile and a half long. All the coral at a moderate depth below water is alive-all above is dead, being the detritus of the living part washed up by the surf, which is so tremendous on the windward side of the tropical islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans that it is often heard miles off, and is frequently the first warning to seamen of their appreach to an atoll.

On the lagoon side, where the water is calm, the boundingring, or reef, shelves into it by a succession of ledges, also of living coral, though not of the same species with those which build the exterior wall and the foundations of the whole ring. The perpetual change of water brought into contact with the external coral by the breakers probably supplies them with more food than they could obtain in a quieter sea, which may account for their more luxuriant growth. At the same time, they deprive the whole of the corals in the interior of the most nourishing part of their food, because the still water in the lagoon, being supplied from the exterior by openings in the ring, ceases to produce the hardier corals; and species of more delicate forms, and of much slower growth, take their place. The depth of the lagoon varies, in different atolls, from 20 to 50 fathoms, the bottom being partly detritus and partly live coral. By the growth of the coral some few of the lagoons have been filled up, but the process is very slow from the causes assigned, and also because there are marine animals that feed on the living coral, and prevent its indefinite growth. In all departments of nature the exuberant increase of any one class is checked and limited by others. The coral is of the most varied and delicate structure, and of the most beautiful tints. Dark brown, vivid green, rich purple, pink, deep blue, peach colour, yellow, with dazzling white, contrasted with deep shadows, shine through the limpid water; while fish of the most gorgeous hues swim among the branching coral, which are of many different kinds, though all combine in the structure of these

singular islands. Lagoon islands are sometimes circular, but more frequently oval or irregular in their form. Sometimes they are solitary, or in groups, but they occur most frequently in elongated archipelagos, with the atolls elongated in the same direction. The grouping of atolls bears a perfect analogy to the grouping of the archipelagos of ordinary islands.

The size of atolls varies from two to ninety miles in diameter, and islets are frequently formed on the the coral rings by the washing up of the detritus, for they are so low that the waves break over them in high tides or storms. They have openings or channels in their circuit, generally on the lee-side, where the tide enters, and by these ships may sail into the lagoons, which are excellent harbours; and even on the surface of the circlet or reef itself there are occasionally boat channels between the islets. Dangerous Archipelago, lying east of the Society Islands, is one of the most remarkable assemblages of atolls in the Pacific Ocean. There are eighty of them, generally of a circular form, surrounding very deep lagoons, and separated from each other by profound depths. The reefs or rings are about half a mile wide, and seldom rise more than 10 feet above the edge of the surf, which beats on them with such violence that it may be heard at the distance of eight miles; and yet on that side the coral insects build more vigorously, and vegetation thrives better, than on the other. Many of the islets are inhabited.

The Caroline Archipelago, the largest of all, lies north of the equator, and extends its atolls in 60 groups over 1,000 miles. Many are of great size, and all are beat by a tempestuous sea and occasional hurricanes. The atolls in the Pacific Ocean and China Sea are beyond enumeration. Though less frequent in the Indian Ocean, none are more interesting, or afford more perfect specimens of this peculiar formation, than the Maldiva and Laccadive archipelagos, both nearly parallel to the coast of Malabar, and elongated in that direction. The former is 470 miles long, and about 50 miles broad, with the atolls arranged in a double row, separated by an unfathomable sea, into which their sides descend with more than ordinary rapidity. The largest atoll is 88 miles long, and somewhat less than 20 broad. Suadiva, the next in size, is 44 miles by 23, with a large lagoon in its centre, to which there is access by 42 openings. There are inhabited islets on most of the chaplets or rings not higher than 20 feet, while the rings themselves are nowhere more than 6 feet above the surge.

The Laccadives run to the north of this archipelago in a double line of nearly circular atolls, on which are low inhabited islets.

Encircling reefs differ in no respect from atoll reefs, except