THE SMALLEST OF SONGSTERS. 329 shoots after him, and then, without touching each other, both mount upwards with a rushing sound, perhaps five hundred feet into the air. They then separate, and each will shoot diagonally downwards, like a ball from a rifle, and wheeling round upon its blossoms, suck away as if no angry mood had marred its tranquillity. Frequently one alone will mount up in this manner, or dart diagonally away, looking exactly like an humble-bee. "Indeed," says Mr. Gosse, "the figure of the smaller humming-birds on the wing, their rapidity, their arrowy course, and their whole manner of flight, are entirely those of an insect; and one who has watched the flight of a large beetle or bee, will have a very good idea of the form of one of these tropic gems painted against the sky." We are further informed that this small species is the only humming-bird that has a real song, the others having only a "pertinacious chirping." Soon after sunrise in the months of spring, perched on the topmost twig of some mango or orange-tree, it warbles for several minutes a continuous melody, low and sweet. Mr. Gosse several times inclosed a nest of eggs of this species, with the dam, taken in the act of sitting, but in no case did she survive twenty-four hours' confinement, or take the slightest notice of her nest. He Two tamarind-trees, near the observer's house, were in full blossom, and around them the vervain humming-bird was swarming. They flocked together like bees, while the air resounded like the immediate precincts of a hive. caught several of them with the net, but could make nothing of them, from their indomitable timidity. When turned into a room, they shot away into the loftiest angle of the ceiling, there hovering motionless, or sometimes slowly turning as if on a pivot, "their wings all the time vibrating with such extraordinary velocity as to be visible only as a semicircular film on each side." A singular species is the Sword-bill humming - bird (Docimastes ensiferus), so named on account of its extraordinary recurved beak, which sometimes measures above four inches long. The majority of the specimens transmitted to Europe have been obtained in the magnificent region of Santa Fé de Bogota. It also occurs in the Caraccas, and Sir William Jardine has received it from Quito, from a locality 11,000 or 12,000 feet above the sea. According to Mr. Hartweg it procures its insect food from the deep corollas of Brugmansia, for the successful exploration of which its lengthened mandibles are most admirably adopted. This fact has been recently confirmed by Sir William Jardine, who in a package from Pichincha, containing specimens of the bird itself, has had transmitted to him an example of the plant into which it probes, and which turns out to be a Brugmansia. M. Temminck, who since the decease of Latham may be regarded as the patriarch of ornithologists, has had his name deservedly bestowed upon a large and highly adorned species, remarkable for the deep cerulean hue of its wings, which in the generality of humming-birds are blackish. is called the sapphire-wing, Pterophanes Temminckii, and inhabits the elevated regions of the Cordilleras of Columbia. It The genus Eutoxeres contains as yet only two species called the sickle-billed humming-birds, by reason of the singular downward curvature of the mandibles. Mr. Gould is of opinion that this very peculiar formation is expressly adapted for the bird obtaining its food from the deep and singularly-shaped flowers of the Orchidacea, so abundant in Central America, and for the exploration of which a bill of any other form would be useless. The habits are not yet known from actual observation. J. W. (To be continued.) THE OLD SCRAP-BOOK. IN the British Museum, not long ago, we were much interested with a thin quarto volume in manuscript, which seems to have been written about the beginning of the seventeenth century. How far some of the pieces are original it is hard to say. A good many of them are not, having been published before; one or two of them in the previous century, by writers of the Elizabethan era. No names are attached, and it is only by a little acquaintance with the literature of that period that the pieces can be traced to any authorship beyond that of the writer of the volume, whoever he might be. The compiler was evidently a Romanist,-a warm sympathiser with the Jesuit plotters of the period, a hater of Protestant rule, and a sworn foe to all "Calvin's cursed crew." He glories in the "martyrdoms" of that age, when "seminary priests," fresh from foreign colleges or from Rome itself, hatched perpetual plots against government, and, on being condemned to death for treason, insisted on being canonised as martyrs.* But, with all this, he appears to have been a man of some taste and feeling. Several of the pieces are beautiful, and the selection is, on the whole, really a good one. Some specimens will, we doubt not, as much interest our readers as the whole volume interested our * Yet some of these men were "more sinned against than sinning." The Pope had placed them in a position in which allegiance to English rule became impossible. They were compelled to be rebels. They petitioned the Pope to relax a little, and not thus to drive them to the gallows. The petition is really a touching one, the poor men begging most piteously for their lives, entreating his holiness to permit them to be loyal to their sovereign. But there was no pity for them. Their petition was refused. Rome needed martyrs, in order to raise the cry of persecution, and it did not matter by what means she obtained them. selves, as we went slowly through its yellow and sometimes blotted pages. It is from this volume that the hymns on the "New Jerusalem" were taken, of which we gave some account in a former paper. The first hymn or poem in the volume is, like most of the rest, without a title, and is in imitation of an old song common in that day. It might, perhaps, be called "A Song of the Church," and runs thus,— "A jollie Shepherd that sate on Sion hill, That with his rod and shepherd's crooke his sheepe directeth still; And to the fountains faire they goe, which is his word indeed. The way into the holie Church, if any list to know, By Shepherd's tabernacles past they must on footsteps goe; And there this Shepherd's spouse so sweet at noonday sure doth lie." Then follows a statement of the way in which this Church was built up,-a description of Christ's sufferings and death. Then speaking of the proofs of Christ's love to His Church, the writer rises on a somewhat stronger and bolder wing, "To witness call these raging words that the two theeves did use, To witness call his bloodie wounds in hands, in feet, and heart, To witness call the bloodie spear which at his syde did run, To witness call the darkness great that covered earth and skies, To witness call his charity when for his foes he prayed. To witness call his coat unseamed, for which the lots were cast, At page 4 there is a pretty long poem, which begins rather sweetly but ends with bitterness, not unmingled with cursing "Calvarie's Mount is my delight, the place I love soe well; Calvarie's Mount! O that I might deserve in thee to dwell! Let me still heere abyde and be, and never to remove- Calvarie Mount, thus would I muse, if I might come to thee, No Herod nor Herodian should cause me thence to fly, Nor all the help that they would have from Calvin's cursed crew; Let me from prison pass away, on hurdle hard to lye, * To Tyburn drawn without delay, in torments there to dye." Then, after a very exaggerated description of the sufferings of the Romanist traitors, it concludes in this better strain, "Sweete Jesu, if it be thy will, unto my plainte attend: Grant grace I may continue still thy servant to the end; Grant blessed Lorde, grant Saviour sweete, grant Jesu, king of bliss, These lines are pleasant from the devotional spirit which they exhibit; but they strike us also on account of their |