not ripe till March or April, nor do the natives generally eat it before that time. The boys, however, who gather it, are marked exceptions: they are of a yellow tint, as if saturated with orange juice.

The process of packing the oranges is expeditious and simple. In some open plot of ground, you find a group of men and children, seated on a heap of the calyxleaves, or husks, of Indian corn, in which each orange is to be wrapped up. The operation begins. A child hands to a workman, who squats beside him, a prepared husk; it is snatched from the child, wrapped round the orange, and passed to the next, who, with the chest between his legs, places it in the orange box; the parties continuing the work with amazing rapidity, until at length the chest is filled to overflowing. Two men now hand it to the carpenter, who bends over it several thin boards, secured with a willow band, presses it with his naked foot as he saws off the ragged ends of the boards, and despatches it to the ass, that stands ready for lading. Two chests are slung on its back by cords, in the figure of 8; and the driver, taking his goad, and uttering his well-known cry, trudges off to town.—Bullar.

LESSON LII.--THE CUCKOO.

The cuckoo builds no nest, but deposits its eggs singly in the nests of small, and, for the most part, insecteating birds. Notwithstanding the immense disparity between the size of the cuckoo, and that of all these birds, there is very little between their eggs; the egg of the cuckoo being of the exact size of that of the skylark. Five or six eggs are deposited by the female cuckoo during the season, extending from the middle of May to

the middle of July; but no more than one is ever (unless by an extraordinary exception) dropped into one nest. After fourteen days' incubation, the young cuckoo is hatched; and as the support of so large a bird alone is sufficiently arduous for the foster-parents, it is necessary that their own eggs and young should be destroyed; and this is always effected by the young cuckoo, in the manner thus described by Dr. Jenner:-"I examined the nest of a hedge-sparrow, which contained a cuckoo and three hedge-sparrow's eggs. The next day the bird had hatched; but the nest then contained only a young cuckoo and one hedge-sparrow. The nest was so placed that I could distinctly see what was going forward in it. To my surprise, I saw the cuckoo, though so lately hatched, in the act of turning out the hedge-sparrow. With the assistance of its rump and wings it contrived to get the bird upon its back, and making a lodgment for its burden by elevating its elbows, clambered backwards with it up the side of the nest till it reached the top, when it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. It remained in this situation for a short time, feeling about with its wings, as if to be convinced that the business was properly executed, and then dropped into the nest again." In climbing up the nest the young cuckoo sometimes drops its burden, but after a little respite the work is resumed and goes on till it is effected. The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, unlike other newly hatched birds, its back is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature to give a more secure lodgment to the eggs or young birds, when the cuckoo is employed in removing them from the nest. When it is about twelve

days old, this cavity is quite filled up, and the back resumes the shape of nestling birds in general.

"Having found that the old hedge-sparrow commonly throws out some of her own eggs, after her nest has received the cuckoo, and not knowing how she might treat her young ones, if the cuckoo were deprived of the power of dispossessing them of the nest, I made the following experiment:-A young cuckoo, that had been hatched by a hedge-sparrow about four hours, was confined in the nest in such a manner that it could not possibly turn out the young ones, which were hatched at the same time, though it was almost incessantly making attempts to do so. The consequence was, that the old bird fed the whole alike, and appeared to pay the same attention to all, until the nest was unfortunately plundered."

Here are many indications of the wisdom with which all the details of the works of God are arranged! One is, the selection, by the parent, of the nest of a bird which feeds its young with insects; for as the fosterparent can only present to its bantling the same kind of food it procures for its own offspring, if this were uncongenial to it, it could not be reared. Then the small size of the strange egg probably prevents the detection of the imposition, until the hatching of the young; after which, the impulse of parental affection is drawn towards it. The exorbitant demand made by the appetite of so large a chick, renders it needful that their exertions be bestowed upon it alone; so that the expulsion of the other eggs, or young, is a provision of mercy towards the parent birds. The same instinct also explains the reason why the nests chosen by the parent cuckoo are those of small birds. If the depth of the nest were great, the

strength of the young cuckoo would be unequal to throwing out the eggs or birds, and the same difficulty would exist if the nestlings to be ejected were not much smaller than itself. Dr. Jenner remarks, that the short residence this bird is allowed to make in the country where it is destined to propagate its species, and the call that nature has upon it, during that short residence, to produce a numerous progeny, may explain its deviation from the ordinary domestic instincts and habits of birds. Gosse.

LESSON LIII.-THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.

Under a spreading chesnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,

Like the sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And the children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from the threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice
Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling, rejoicing,-sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought.—Longfellow.

K