lie; now sloping towards the water and down the stream, ready at the appointed time to glide majestically into the river, and thence to plough their way to every portion of the habitable globe.-Abbott.

LESSON LXVII.-CROWS.

Of all the Ceylon birds of this order, the most familiar and notorious are the small glossy crows, whose shining black plumage, shot with blue, has suggested the title of Corons Splendens. They frequent the towns in companies, and domesticate themselves in the close vicinity of every house; and it may possibly serve to account for the familiarity and audacity which they exhibit in their intercourse with men, that the Dutch during their sovereignty in Ceylon enforced severe penalties against any one killing a crow, under the belief that they were instrumental in extending the growth of cinnamon, by feeding on the fruit, and thus disseminating the undigested seed.

All day long these birds are engaged in watching either the offal of the offices, or the preparation for meals in the dining rooms; and as doors and windows are necessarily opened to relieve the heat, nothing is more common than the passage of a crow across the room, lifting on the wing some ill-guarded morsel from the dinner table. No article, however unpromising its quality, provided only it be portable, can with safety be left unguarded in any apartment accessible to them. The contents of ladies' work-boxes, kid gloves, and pocket handkerchiefs, vanish instantly if exposed near a window or open door. They open paper parcels to ascertain the contents; they will undo the knot on a napkin if it encloses anything eatable; and I have known

a crow to extract the peg which fastened the lid of a basket in order to plunder the provender within.

One of these ingenious marauders, after vainly atti tudinising in front of a chained watch-dog, that was lazily gnawing a bone, and after fruitlessly endeavouring to divert his attention by dancing before him, with head awry, and eye askance, at length flew away for a moment, and returned bringing a companion, which perched itself on a branch a few yards in the rear. The crow's grimaces were now actively renewed, but with no better success till its confederate, poising itself on its wings, descended with the utmost velocity, striking the dog upon the spine with all the force of its strong beak. The ruse was successful; the dog started with surprise and pain, but not quickly enough to seize his assailant, whilst the bone he had been gnawing was snatched away by the first crow the instant his head was turned. Two well-authenticated instances of the recurrence of this device came within my knowledge at Colombo, and attest the sagacity and powers of communication and combination possessed by these astute and courageous birds. Tennent's "Ceylon."

LESSON LXVIII.-LUCY GRAY.

No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew ;
She dwelt on a wide moor;
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a cottage door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night,
You to the town must go ;

And take a lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

That, father, I will gladly do,
'Tis scarcely afternoon-

The minster clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon."

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a faggot band;
He plied his work, and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe;
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time,
She wandered up and down,
And many a hill did Lucy climb
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from the door.

N

They wept, and turning homeward, cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet,”-
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy's feet.

Half breathless, from the steep hill's edge
They tracked the foot-marks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone wall;

And then an open field they crossed—
The marks were still the same;
They track them on, nor ever lost,
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
These foot-marks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank-
And further there were none !

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.-Wordsworth.

LESSON LXIX.-NORWEGIAN FIORDS.

Every one who has looked at the map of Norway must have been struck with the singular character of its coast. On the map it looks so jagged, such a strange mixture of land and sea, that it appears as if there must be a perpetual struggle between the two-the sea striving to inundate the land, and the land pushing itself out into the sea, till it ends in their dividing the region

between them. On the spot, however, this coast is very sublime. The long straggling promontories are mountainous, towering ridges of rock, springing up in precipices, from the water; while the bays between them, instead of being rounded with shelving sandy shores, on which the sea tumbles its waves, as in bays of our coast, are in fact long narrow valleys, filled with sea, instead of being laid out in fields and meadows. The high rocky banks shelter these deep bays (called fiords) from almost every wind; so that their waters are usually as still as those of a lake. For days and weeks together, they reflect each separate tree-top of the pine forests which clothe the mountain sides, the mirror being broken only by the leap of some sporting fish, or the oars of the boatman, as he goes to inspect the sea-fowl from islet to islet of the fiord, or carries out his nets or his rod, to catch the sea-trout, or char, or cod, or herrings, which abound in their seasons on the coast of Norway.

It is difficult to say whether these fiords are the most beautiful in summer, or in winter. In summer, they glitter with golden sunshine, and purple and green shadows from the mountain and forest lie on them; and these may be more lovely than the faint light of the winter noons of those latitudes, and the snowy pictures of frozen peaks, which then show themselves on the surface; but before the day is half over, out come the stars the glorious stars, which shine like nothing that we have ever seen. There, the planets cast a faint shadow, as the young moon does with us; and these planets and the constellations of the sky, as they silently glide over from peak to peak of these rocky passes, are imaged on the waters so clearly that the fisherman, as he unmoors his boat for his evening task, feels as if he