had done so, by this time you would have been found out. Jog on, long leg. The French Academicians are talking about you now, a little, though they know nothing about your name or person. Prepare yourself, old glum, with some babies and a fireside. Without an Aurora the fogs of your long night will hover over your coming noon; but she would shine them away, and give you a morning for the long and cheerful day which will come for you yet. But he is gone to his star-gazing.

There is a blue leg-two of them, though not | years past, man, is that you would not cheat well matched. I see whose they are. They the world out of its honors. But then if you are carrying a soldier to his agent for the fiftieth time to inquire whether the Pension-office has placed him on the roll. The last time he inquired a letter from the Commissioner was shown him to the effect that the sworn affidavits of three respectable soldiers who saw him bayoneted did not prove any thing, but he must get the captain or some other officer he served under to certify to the facts "on his honor." He is thinking now whether his agent wrote to the Commissioner what he told him to say, viz.: That one of his officers was a man of honor, and would not certify because he did not personally witness the wounding; and the other, who did, refused the favor of a certificate. And he told him to say, moreover, that the oath of a private soldier was better than the word of honor of an officer. But, poor fellow! what do you know of law? You had better give up looking for your pension. Every body knows you were hurt in battle, but you are an unpopular fellow with your officers, and you can not get your pension without them.

There's a leg that does me good. It is clothed in coarse and dirty cloth, but comes to a neat, fair fit. It is rapid, yet I see by the passive instep that it is fatigued. It is going home to sweet kisses and a hot supper. It has bustled about a shop all day, and was glad when the six o'clock bell rang. The industrious and skillful mechanic always adjusts his clothes, washes his hands, and presents a respectable mien when he goes home. He knows where little Kitty will meet him, how Neddy will run, and the baby will peep. His wife is not waiting for him, for There's a leg that will win. It is a long leg, I see by that leg that I am thinking about the with a bad piece of old dry-goods on it. It is right man. She will look at the clock, and then not springy, agile, or quick; yet not sluggish, bring in the tea, because she knows just when nerveless, and insensible. It carries an unhap- he will come. This evening she allows fifteen py man, who has always been worsted, but who minutes later, because George is to go to a booknever stays whipped. He takes long, camel- store over on Grand Street for a copy of a new like strides, putting his foot here and there ir- book of the rudiments of science for children, regularly, but always-just like that now- and to see a sick woman over on the Bowery. with a dogged conclusiveness and a fair, flat She feels pleased, for she has good news to tell emphasis. He is all head and feet when he him. She has just been told by the agent that walks, the rest of him taking all adventitious the landlord (mirabile dictu!) has lowered the rent shapes, but these two extremities being ever in consideration of their careful tenancy, and consistent with each other, like opposite poles agreed for another year at a handsome abateof a battery. His voice is unmusical-I can ment. With this difference George is to buy see it in the crook of his knee now-and his drawing materials for Jane, some additional manners undignified. His clothes are decent, furniture for the parlor, and pay for photographs for he is too unaffected to dress in ostentatious for distribution among kindred and friends, berags, and too negligent of social favor to dress sides an increase in the amount of the customgenteelly; and as barely decent, he is never ary charities, and have yet a smart sum for the looked at except when he unconsciously pro- savings-bank. Go on, George! You are the vokes derision by acting as if he were some-typical citizen. On you and your likes rest all body. He never can comprehend how he should the glories of nations and peoples. From firebe so strangely misunderstood by all the world; sides such as yours emanate all the institutes of and now, at forty, he begins to feel as if he public order, public good, and public will. Let 'did not care. He does not see his way clearly all the learned, the great, and the rich pass away, through the world, but plods on. He will not and you would still be a nation, great as ever, a conform to the world, and does not dream of society perfect as ever, a people mighty as ever. the world conforming to him. He does not Go home, George, where you belong. care much about it. His ambition died with his youth, and he is a lonely bachelor. That leg has length of days and invincible tenacity. Other men will be declining when his strength will be at its height. Go, old fellow, and marry! Forty is only a little too old for you. For the world will shortly take a turn that will give you some hand in its affairs. Such a leg as that never got cold since the world was made without a great fuss being made over it by the king, the bishop, and the biographer, unless casualty locked its pulse before old age. The reason you have not been famous for twenty

That leg, now, is a brisk one. Pretty as a patent medicine bottle, it comes down into the neatest little boot of all the world, and pats along with a thousand supernumerary little jerks, as if, like an echo, it would die if it stopped, or as if, like the dancing moon in the water, it had so many motions that it did not know what to do with them. leg. Its nerves are strung at the golden thumbscrews by the rosy fingers of Hope, who trails her shining gossamers, thick as hair on the head, through the soul of that youngster, and shuts out all winds but the breeze of her own

That is a young

having-as those legs unmistakably have on all occasions-self-possession enough about him to know how to escape. Yet those legs are delicately moulded--I see by the knee-pan-but muscular, I see by the calf. The instep is flattened by the habit of gait, but its mobility in the air shows its high arch, an unerring mark of manhood, of nerve, and of daring. This coward was born to no weakness but a humane horror of the brutal and sanguinary, and an exquisite sense of outward contact, spiritual or physical. That he should shrink from violence should have but exalted the courage to which he was born. But the vulgar notion of courage--that is, a love of fighting, he never thought of questioning; for what priest, or poet, or historian ever did? and as he was most distinctly conscious of an unspeakable horror of a fight, he never undertook to withstand danger like others, until, in course of time, he acquired a

impalpable wand with which she shakes the shining delusion into infinite complexions for his rapture. Is she a deceiver? No. He deceives her. He abjures conscience and reason and devolves upon Hope the responsibility for his happiness through life. She is doing as best she may. But, young man, hold still a moment. Listen! If only you could keep your legs still, your head would soon reckon up your account. Whose boots are those? Whose watch is that? Whose money is in your pocket? "Necessities to a gentleman." Eh? Nothing is necessary that is not right. "Trifles easy to reimburse." Yes, but to whom easy? Not to the poor, and the rich are those who have, not those who expect riches. I see you, long years hence, in situations too terrible to describe to you. But I see you, at the best, long years hence, in shabby and threadbare clothes, with cast-down countenance, wasted form, and feeble step, soliciting humble but honest employ-habit of living in a state of apprehension, which ment, with a real desire to begin a new life. But your heart will be too heavy with its burden of bitter regrets. Gentlemen's clothes, watches, and pocket-money you will not have. That leg I see now, so elastic and elegant, will be trembling and languid, awkward with shame and ugly with premature age. Why not put off the fine things now? Think what you would make by it. All prepossessions in your favor, years of industry and opportunity before you, and all the blessings and powers of youth still yours-cellence, and, especially, your love for her. what should you care for boots, watches, and pocket-money with that leg I see on you now? Take the habiliments and lose the legs, or throw aside the habiliments for a while and save both them and the legs. Save your legs, did I say? Your honor-your soul, boy! Save it. But he don't hear me. He's gone.

made it the principal business of his life to foresee and escape danger from every thing. Come, man, don't be afraid; you are young yet-put down your foot like a man, walk with your legs, swing your arms, look straight ahead, fill your lungs and allow your abdomen to go about its business. There's pluck enough in you for a terrier; though your wife don't believe a word of it, and never did, poor girl! She found out your imagination, your taste, your love of ex

But that you concealed three years for fear Bob Davis, a rival, would knock you down. Now I'll give you a definition of bravery. You go home and ask your wife whether it is satisfactory. If she says so, all right. Act on it. Say this: A brave man is one who will not desist from a just purpose in consequence of peril to his person. If you stick to that your neighbors will find you as brave as themselves. And if you stick faithfully to it you will, as any manbut particularly the great murderers of history would have been-be pretty sure to get to the end of life without one single fight. But slap, slap goes the poor fellow's feet on the sidewalk, and other men's legs thicken the throng.

More legs-that is a coward's. His knees are lifted high at each step, while the lower leg and foot dangle, and the latter slaps the ground like a shingle. He walks with his abdominal muscles and helps them with his shoulders, which he does by relaxing the breast muscles and turning his elbows outward. The step is heavy and decisive once made, because the creature has not courage enough to qualify it. Here is a leg to write a book on. That is a Poor coward! The scorn of women, the sport thing of power. It is long, sinewy, and easy in of wags, the tool of tyrants. Cowards are not motion, but with a marching precision that always born so, as it is certain that the brave wastes not a fibre's tension. The foot is plantwere not always born to intrepidity. Will no-ed so firmly and regularly that the ground seems body speak a word for this worst punished of all offenders? Shrinking sensibility in childhood can be turned into cowardice by calling it by so shameful a name. The child does not doubt that it is really natural irresolution; and to believe you have not the courage to do it, is saying that you are afraid to do it. These legs in all their life, perhaps, have encountered no danger but what it was possible to fly from; and they fled, of course, because their owner, believing himself a born coward, had sense enough not to expose himself. That his passion of resistance is moderate argues not against his capacity for iron firmness, but conclusively in favor of his

always to smooth itself where this man walks. No inequality in the pavement disconcerts the perfect action of the limb; and there is a consciousness of power in the gait that inspires an instinctive action in all the neighboring legs to get out of the way. The person moves fast, but the legs do not seem to be quick because they measure the time and space, and fit both without any jerking. That man is a born leader. Among all mankind he is most certain to find his level. Men, however proud, delight in being proud of some greater object than themselves. What is voluntarily conceded is not so great as what can oblige concession. Greater self-confidence than

mine obliges me to concede leadership to you, Iron-leg. Arrogance is your greatness-and great it is as the world goes; for by that you have the most skillful, the strongest, the most gifted hands in the community where you reside to turn your grindstone. Imputed talents show in you fruits like real ones do in others, because you conduct a kind of presidency over the riches of other minds, and even claim that doing so is exercising the highest talent of all. Grant you, Iron-leg, it is the talent of kings and rulers; but you will never get a presidency over the intellectual progeny of the tramping old stargazing bachelor, whose legs I saw a while ago, nor over the poet's song, the painter's pencil, or the philosopher's microscope. You

Bless me! Here is my coffee and toast, cold as a dog's nose! Now I must be after my own legs.

THE FOOD OF BIRDS.

ty-four, on the fifth twenty-five, on the sixth thirty, and on the seventh thirty-one worms. These quantities, however, seemed to be insufficient, and, as the bird appeared to be losing plumpness and weight, the Professor began to weigh both the bird and its food, and to tabulate the results of these weighings. By this table it appears that though the food was increased to forty worms, weighing twenty pennyweights, on the eleventh day the weight of the bird rather fell off, and it was not until the fourteenth day when the bird ate sixty-eight worms, weighing thirty-four pennyweights, that his weight began to increase. On this day the weight of the bird was twenty-four pennyweights; he therefore ate forty-one per cent. more than his own weight in twelve hours; weighing after it twenty-nine pennyweights, or fifteen per cent. less than the food he had eaten in that time. On the fifteenth day a small quantity of raw meat was offered to the bird, and it being found that this was readily eaten it was

"HOW rich our Lord Gos Table-Talk"; "I wore.

OW rich our Lord God must be!" says afterward employed to the gradual exclusion of

do verily believe that to feed the sparrows in Germany costs Him more than all the revenue of the King of France."

What do all the birds eat? Where do they all find food enough to support their own lives and the lives of their young? These are questions which are continually coming up in everyday life, together with that other set of reproachful queries as to why the birds don't eat up the caterpillars and canker-worms, and let alone cherries and strawberries. In view of the very general interest which attaches to the matter, and of the frequency with which the abovementioned questions are asked, it seems strange that so small an amount of organized knowledge bearing upon this subject has as yet been collected.

As an offset to the objection that the earthworm contains but a small amount of solid nutritious matter, the bird was fed upon the twenty-seventh day exclusively on clear beef, in quantity twenty-three pennyweights; at night the bird weighed fifty-two pennyweights, this being but little more than twice the amount of flesh consumed during the day, no account being taken of the water, earth, and gravel, of which large quantities were daily swallowed. This presents a wonderful contrast with the amount of food required by the cold-blooded vertebrates, fishes, and reptiles, many of which can live for months without food, and also with that required by mammalia. A man at this rate should eat about seventy pounds of flesh per day, and drink five or six gallons of water.

With regard to the question, how can this immense amount of food required by the young birds be supplied by the parents? Professor Treadwell enters into the following computation: Suppose a pair of old robins with the usual number of four young ones, these would daily require, according to the consumption of the bird subjected to experiment, two hundred and fifty worms, or their equivalent in insects or other food; suppose the parents to work ten hours, or six hundred minutes, to procure this supply; this would be a worm in every two and four tenth's minutes; or each parent must procure a worm or its equivalent in less than five minutes during ten hours, in addition to the food required for its own support. But after all the Professor is compelled to confess his inability to reconcile the calculation with actual observation of robins, which he has never seen return to their nests oftener than once in ten minutes.

As to the large amount of food which some birds are capable of absorbing there is a set of thoroughly scientific experiments by Professor Treadwell, of Cambridge, upon the young of the American robin. A couple of vigorous, half-grown birds having been selected in the early part of June, the Professor began to feed them with earth-worms, giving three of these to each bird the first night; next day he gave them ten worms each, which they ate ravenously; but thinking this quantity of food to be greater than that which could naturally be supplied by their parents he limited the birds to this allowance. On the third day he gave to each bird eight worms in the forenoon; but in the afternoon he found one of them becoming feeble, and soon after it refused food and died; on opening it, he found the crop, gizzard, and intestines entirely empty, and concluded therefore that it had died from want of sufficient food, the effect of hunger being perhaps increased by cold, as the thermometer was only about 60°. The other bird, still vigorous, he put in a warm-second day after having been captured, after er place, and increased its food, giving it the third day fifteen worms, on the fourth day twen

The bird experimented upon by Professor Treadwell attained its full size on the thirty

which time it ceased to increase in weight; its diet from this time on amounted on the average

to eighteen pennyweights of beef or thirty-six pennyweights of earth-worms per day. From the fact that the bird thus continued in its confinement, with certainly much less exercise than in the wild state, to eat one-third of its weight of clear flesh daily, the Professor concludes that the food consumed by it when young was not much more than must always be provided by the parents of wild birds.

But it is more particularly with regard to the quality of the food of birds that we know so little. In the pewee and the king-bird the naturalist sees a couple of large "fly-catchers," of exceedingly interesting habits, to which the largest courtesies should be extended; while in the eyes of many farmers these birds are simply malevolent destroyers of bees; and it may well be possible that, by destroying insectivorous insects as well as bees, these birds really do more harm than good, looking of course from the lowest utilitarian point of view.

of the vireos and wood-warblers no doubt find an abundance of moths and other insects to supply their wants; while the dietary of the various woodpeckers seems to be tolerably well understood, though it has lately been asked by a distinguished ornithologist whether, after all, the country boy's name, "sap-sucker," as applied to some of the woodpeckers, is altogether a misnomer? Take the

But how is it with the swallows? hardy "white-bellied swallow" (Hirundo bicolor) for an example, as he follows the sun northward with a seemingly most indiscreet haste. What does he find stirring in the insect line during the first days of his arrival? What do the bluebirds eat from day to day during their long sojourn? And so on with all the rest.

With regard to the robin all these questions have been answered very satisfactorily at least in so far as a single locality is concerned-by Professor Jenks, of Middleborough, Massachusetts, whose very interesting report to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society will be found in the published Journal of that Association. Professor Jenks, having determined to make the food of the robin a subject of special investigation throughout an entire year, in order that some positive conclusion might be arrived at in reference to the utility of this bird to the horticul turist, adopted the following plan of investigation: (1.) to obtain birds at daybreak, mid-day, and sunset; (2.) to obtain birds from both the village and the country; and (3.) to preserve in alcohol the contents of each gizzard. Beginning with the first week of March, 1858, specimens were actually examined at least weekly, and most of the time daily, to December, and during the winter months at least semimonthly.

As far as the specimens procured at daybreak were concerned no positive information seems to have been obtained, since the gizzards of these are represented to have been either entirely empty or but partially distended with well-mac

Everybody is aware that the crow eats a few grains of corn at the time of planting, and that the robin eats cherries and strawberries with avidity when these are to be had, but what do most of us know of the food of the crow, or of the robin, during the other fifty weeks of the year, more than that the latter is occasionally to be seen regaling himself upon earth-worms and the former upon carrion? that the contents of the stomachs of a dozen or two of crows have been examined and recorded by naturalists? and that the species is accused of sucking the eggs and destroying the young of various small birds which nest upon the ground? By the standard works upon Ornithology we are told that the crow devours insects, grubs, worms; that he destroys mice, moles, and other small quadrupeds; and that he will eat snakes, frogs, and the like, as well as fruits, seeds, and vegetables. But the testimony is so meagre that we may well pause to question its worth when called to sit in judgment upon the moot question whether or no, year in year out, the crow does commit more of good than of evil as regards man-erated food. But the birds killed in the latter kind. part of the day were uniformly filled with food which had been only recently taken. Numbers of male robins made their appearance at Middleborough early in March, but it was not until the second week in April that any female birds were noticed. From the early part of March up to the first of May not a particle of vegetable matter was found in the gizzard of a single bird. Nine-tenths of the whole mass of food examined during this period consisted of a single kind of larva, the Bibio albipennis, of Say, though a great variety of other insects in all stages of growth and development were also met with. Of the larva in question from one to two hundred specimens were frequently taken from a single gizzard, and usually when this larva was found it was the only food in the stomach. During the month of May the Bibio larva entirely disappeared from the gizzards, being replaced, up to the 21st of June, by a variety of insects, or worms only, including spiders, caterpillars, and beetles of the

Then there is the cherry-bird, with his striking traits of beauty, beneficence, and evil, today sweeping away the canker-worms as with fire and sword; and to-morrow cleaning out the cherry-trees as effectually as if a flight of locusts had passed over the land; and again, a few months later, feasting upon the cedar-berries in the same reckless way And yet how little do we really know of the ordinary food of the cherry-bird; for with the foregoing items we have accounted for only three or four weeks of his yearly life. It is note-worthy, by-the-way, that, with the Baltimore oriole, the cherry-bird is one of the very few members of the feathered tribe which will greedily eat the hairy caterpillars which infest our orchard trees.

The American goldfinch, or black-winged yellow-bird, with his notorious liking for the seeds of dandelions, lettuce, and the thistle, can be followed through a month or two, and some

family Elaterida, the parents of the well-known most truly carnivorous—which do not at times wire-worm so destructive to corn and various partake of insects as food. seeds at the time of planting.

The earth-worm, though a favorite food for the young bird, was found to be eaten but sparingly by the adult. After the 21st of June the Professor began to find strawberries, cherries, and other pulpy fruits, though these were still mixed with insects in the majority of instances; birds captured at a distance from gardens and fruit trees having less fruit and a larger number of insects in their gizzards than those taken near the village, the robin not being an extensive forager. This mixed diet continued from the ripening of the strawberries and cherries until October, the vegetable portion consisting, during August and September, in great part of elder-berries and poke - berries. During the month of October the vegetable diet wholly disappeared, its place being supplied by grasshoppers and other orthopterous insects. Early in November the robins which have passed the summer among us migrate southward-the few immigrants from the north, which are seen by us during the winter months, managing at that time to eke out a miserable existence upon bay-berries, privet-berries, and juniper-berries.

Somewhat similar in conception to the researches of Professor Jenks, though of much wider scope, are those to which M. Florent Prevost has devoted himself in France. As one of the naturalists in charge of the famous collections at the Garden of Plants in Paris this observer has had a peculiarly good opportunity to study the question now under discussion. During nearly thirty years he has taken pains to collect and preserve the contents of the stomachs of all the birds which have been brought to the Museum, to say nothing of large numbers of specimens procured specially by himself and by the foresters of numerous public and private estates who have interested themselves in his behalf.

It is to be regretted that the complete details of M. Prevost's researches have not been published. As yet we have only an abstract of his results, and the promise of a circumstantial account of his studies at some future day. Among the more note-worthy of M. Prevost's conclusions may be mentioned the fact that the food of birds varies according to the age of the bird as well as according to the season of the yearthe observation of Professor Jenks, that earthworms are eaten by young but not by old robins, being evidently nothing more than the particular case of a general law. M. Prevost has acertained also that the young of the greater number of granivorous birds are really fed upon insects, and that even the adults themselves are insectivorous during the breeding-season. familiar instance of which we have in this country the common chipping sparrow; and the same remark applies to those species of birds which in early spring devour the buds and young leaves of trees. It was found also that there are but few of the birds of prey-even those which are

The more carefully one studies the subject, so much the more astonishing does the place which is occupied by insects in the alimentation of birds appear. As every one knows, there are stated seasons of the year when certain kinds of insects make their appearance in large num-* bers, and at these times it would almost seem that the very abundance of this food induced the birds to partake of it. For example, during the interval when the June-bug is abundant portions of this insect can be found in the stomachs of the greater number of the birds which inhabit France at that season of the year; and the beetle in question is then found also in the stomachs of many quadrupeds, from the little shrew-mouse up to the wolf.

M. Prevost asserts his ability to demonstrate, so soon as the details of his researches are made public, that birds are in general much more useful than hurtful to the husbandman, and that even the damage committed at certain moments by the grain-eaters proper is largely compensated for at other times by the consumption of insects by these very birds. He insists, moreover, upon the necessity of seeking for new methods of protecting those crops which are liable to be injured by the feathered race, instead of resorting, as now, to the suicidal policy of destroying or seeking to destroy the latter.

The influence of food in determining the vagabond life which is led by many kinds of birds is remarkable. While some animals, without change of habitation, make out to obtain nourishment throughout the year by resorting to different kinds of food according to the season, others confine themselves exclusively to such aliments as can be obtained only under peculiar conditions of climate, their food being found only at stated periods in any one country. Now, in the case of quadrupeds, when a given species can not adapt itself to changing circumstances, can not obtain continuously the food suitable for its maintenance, hibernation is the usual resource: the animal simply sleeps through the unfavorable season. But with birds this curious phenomenon of hibernation does not occur-at least naturalists have not been able to detect any evidence of its existence; not even enough to account for the widely-spread popular belief or prejudice that swallows pass the winter in the mud of ponds; but instead of that, and equally dependent upon the question of nourishment, we have the still more remarkable phenomenon of migration, when, following the calls of hunger, the feathered myriads pass to and fro over the countries of the earth.

One curious point noticed by M. Prevost furAnishes a remarkable contrast to the insatiable hunger and lack of endurance exhibited by the young robins of Professor Treadwell: it is, that some species of birds are capable, at certain epochs, of living for a long time without food, their stomachs being found to contain at these seasons no alimentary matter whatsoever, but