This circulation must necessarily strike us. If the mortality is so great every year, and even every hour, is it not probable that he who reflects on it may himself be one of those which swell the list of the dead! It is at least certain, that it ought to lead us often to serious reflections. Now, at this moment, one of our fellow-creatures is going out of the world; and before this hour be passed, more than three thousand souls will have entered into eternity. What a motive for thinking often and seriously on death. Prodigiously great as the earth appears, its greatness vanishes at once, when we compare this globe to the other worlds which roll over our heads. The earth is then, in comparison of the whole universe, what a grain of sand is to the highest mountain. But how does this thought exalt thee in our eyes how inexpressible and infinite does thy greatness appear, O thou Creator of heaven and earth! The world and all its inhabitants are before thee as a drop in the ocean, or as the light atoms which float in the air. And what am I, among these thousand millions of inhabitants of the earth! What am I before thee, thou immense, infinite, and eternal Being! APRIL APRIL XIII. GENERATION OF BIRDS. AT this season of the year there is a revolution in nature which certainly claims our attention. It is the time the birds lay, and hatch their young. This annual miracle passes in a manner before our eyes; and that it is really a wonder, which cannot be too much admired, the following reflections will convince us.-In each fruitful egg, which has not yet been sat on, there is a spot (about the size of a freckle) visible in the yolk. In the centre of this spot there is a white circle, like a thin partition, which extends a little towards the top, and appears to join to some small bladders there. In the middle of this circle, there is a kind of fluid matter wherein the embryo of the chick is seen to float. It is composed of two lines or white threads, which appear sometimes to be separated from one another at their extremity; and between which a lead-coloured fluid is perceptible. The extremity of the embryo is contained in a little bag, surrounded by a pretty large ligament; and it is there that the navel afterwards shews itself. This ligament is composed partly of a solid yellowish substance, and partly of a fluid dark substance, which is also surrounded by a white circle. This is what has been observed in the egg before it is sat upon. After it has been above twelve hours under the hen, there appears in the lincaments of the embryo, which is in the middle of the little spot, a moisture that has the form of a little head, on which are seen little vesicles, that afterwards become the back bones. L3 bones. In thirty hours, the navel appears covered with a multitude of little vessels. The eyes also are then distinguishable. The two white threads, which, in reuniting, have still left some space between them, inclose five little bags, which are the brainy substance, and the spinal marrow, which goes through to its extremity. The heart is then visible: But it has not yet been discovered, whether it is the heart or the blood that is first formed. Be that as it may, it is certain that the embryo of the chick existed before in the egg; and that, after it has been some time sat upon, they distinguish the back bones, the brain, the spinal marrow, the wings, and part of the flesh, before the heart, the blood, and the vessels are perceptible. At the end of 36 hours, the navel is covered with a number of vessels, separated from one another, by unequal spaces. According to all appearance, they existed before in the little spot, and are only made visible by the fluid matter which swells them. When the essential parts of the chick are thus formed, it continues to take new growth till the twentieth or twenty-first day, when it is able to break of itself the shell which had contained it. We owe these discoveries to some great natu- || ralists, who, with the assistance of microscopes, have observed, almost from hour to hour, the progress of the formation and the hatching of the chick. However, notwithstanding all that we have drawn from their observations, there still remain many mysteries, which may never be discovered to us. How does the embryo come into the egg? and who gave it the faculty of receiving, by means of warmth (for that is all the hen communicates to it), a new life and being? What is it that puts the essential parts of the chick in motion? and what is that vivifying spirit, which, through the shell, penetrates even to the heart, and occasions its pulsation? What inspires the birds with instinct to multiply by a way common to them all? How do they know that their young are contained in the egg? What engages them to sit on the nest all the time necessary to hatch them? Questions these are which cannot be answered in a satisfactory man But the little we know of the generation of birds is sufficient to prove the wisdom of the Creator; as it can neither be attributed to a blind chance, nor to art assisting nature. God had the wisest reasons for ordaining, that certain animals should not arrive at perfection, till after they come from their mother's womb; while others reach their full maturity in it. And it may be allowed, that whoever does not discover the hand of God in the production of birds, will not see it any where. For, if the profoundest wisdom is not visible in this, it will appear so in nothing. O man, spectator of the wondrous works of God, adore with me the all-wise Being! Do not disdain to seek, in apparently small objects, the impression of his goodness, his power, and his ineffable wisdom. APRIL XIV. PROGNOSTICS OF THE WEATHER. WINDS, heat, cold, rain, snow, fogs, drought, and other such alterations in the temperature of the air, do not always depend on causes regular and necessary. There are, however, some signs in nature, which, in some degree, foretel the weather. The position of our globe, in respect to the sun, which is known to us in the four seasons of the year, the changes of the moon, the precise moment of which can be determined; the influence those celestial bodies, and all the planets of our system, have upon the heat, the cold, the motion, and the stillness of the air, are so many immutable laws, upon which may be established several prognostics of the weather. The consequences drawn from them are so much the less to be despised, as they are founded on experience, and that it is by the rules of analogy that the future is judged of by the past. It is true, that a thousand accidental circumstances may occasion alterations which we had no reason to expect. But it must be considered that these accidental circumstances are of short duration; and if they occasion any change in the ordinary course of the temperature of the air, it is only for a little time, and in some particular places. That, in general, the change of weather is so regular that it may be foreseen, is what our observation may prove to us every year. We are seldom mistaken in supposing that the north and east winds generally bring cold, the south heat, and the west rain; that, during a north-east wind, it rains in summer, and snows in winter. We may with equal probability conjecture, that, when the morning sky is red there will be wind or rain in the afternoon: And, that the evening red, when it is not copper colour, promises fair weather next day. The weather in spring foretels what it will be in summer. If there are many fogs in spring, it is very likely that the summer will be rainy. If there are great floods in spring, there |