by an engraving in the second volume of Hone's "Every-Day Book," of a singular mode of killing larks at this season, in some parts of France and England.

As if the feathered race did not suffer enough from famine and the severity of the weather, every body seems now up in arms against them. The law, with a spirit of humanity honourable to the nation, is opposed to tracking game in a snow, yet this is a time of peculiar enjoyment to the sportsman. Water-fowl are driven from their secluded haunts in meres and marshes to open streams; snipes and woodcocks to springs and small runnels; where they become accessible, and easily found. In towns and villages, every mechanic and raw lad is seen marching forth with his gun to slay his quota of redwings, field-fares, etc., which now become passive from cold and hunger. Let all good people, who value their persons, keep at a distance from suburban hedges; for such sportsman is sure to pop at every bird which comes before him, be it sparrow, tomtit, or robin redbreast; nothing comes amiss to him, and nothing does he think of but his mark. Many an eye has been lost; many a cow, horse, and sheep,

Not

has felt the sharp salutation of his desperate shot, and shall do again; for if the public does not take warning, he will not. In farm-yards, trains of corn are laid, and scores of sparrows, finches, etc. are slaughtered at a shot. Even the school-boy is bent upon their destruction. His trap, made of four bricks and a few pegs, is to be seen in every garden, and under every rick, and with a sieve, a stick, and a string, drawn through a window or a keyhole, he is standing ready to pounce upon them. even night, with its deepest shades, can protect them at this cruel time. They are roused from their slumbers in the sides of warm stacks by a sieve or a net, fixed upon a pole, being clapped before them. Those which roost in hedges and copses are aroused by beating the trees and bushes, at the same time that they are dazzled with the glare of a torch, and, flying instinctively towards the light, are knocked down and secured. This is called in some counties birdmoping; and in this manner are destroyed great numbers of pheasants, thrushes, blackbirds, besides innumerable small birds. With all these enemies, and these various modes of

destruction, it is only surprising that the race is not extirpated.

One of the pleasures of frosty weather will be found in walking. The clear and bracing air invigorates the frame; exercise gives a delightful glow to the blood, and the mind is held in pleasing attention to the phenomena and features of the season. Every sound comes to the ear with a novel and surprising distinctness. The low of cattle; the rattle of far-off wheels; the hollow tread of approaching feet; and the merry voices of sliders and skaiters, who are pursuing their healthful amusement upon every sheet of unruffled ice. In towns, however, walking is none of the safest. From time immemorial boys have used it as an especial privilege of theirs to make slides upon every causeway, maugre the curses and menacing canes of old gentlemen, and the certain production of falls, bruises, and broken bones. Sometimes, too, rain freezing as it falls, or a sudden thaw, and as sudden a re-freezing, covers the whole ground with a sheet of the most glassy ice. Such a frost occurred in 1811, when great numbers of birds were caught, and

amongst them several bustards, their wings being glazed to their sides, and their feet to the ground. But of all the phenomena of winter, none equals in beauty

THE HOAR FROST. A dense haze most commonly sets in over night, which has vanished the next morning, and left a clear atmosphere, and a lofty arch of sky of the deepest and most diaphanous blue, beaming above a scene of enchanting beauty. Every tree, bush, twig, and blade of grass, from the utmost nakedness has put on a pure and feathery garniture, which appears the work of enchantment, and has all the air and romantic novelty of a fairy-land. Silence and purity are thrown over the earth as a mantle. The hedges are clothed in a snowy foliage, thick as their summer array. The woods are filled with a silent splendour ; the dark boles here and there contrasting strongly with the white and sparkling drapery of the boughs above, amongst which the wandering birds fly, scattering the rime around them in snowy showers. There is not a thicket but has assumed a momentary aspect of strange loveliness and the mind is more affected by it from its suddenness of creation, and the con

sciousness of its speedy departure:-for hoarfrosts and gipsies are said never to remain nine days in a place,-the former, indeed, seldom continue three days.

In this most fierce and inhospitable of all months, besides the beautiful features we have already noted, we are ever and anon presented with momentary smiles and isolated instances of vegetable life, which come, as it were, to keep the heart from withering amidst the despondency of this season of deadness. The Helleborus niger, or Christmas Rose, expands its handsome white chalices, undaunted by the sharpest frosts, and blooms amidst overwhelming wreaths of snow long before that poetical and popular favourite, the Snowdrop, dares to emerge from its shrouding earth.

Mild and even sunny days sometimes break the sullen monotony of January, which the country people look upon less with a pleased than a foreboding eye, denominating them weather-breeders. Whilst they are present, however, whatever consequences they may be chargeable with, they are extremely grateful. Gnats will even be seen to issue from their secret dormitories, to dance in the long withheld