has never failed to sleep here during the
winter mouths. Before she leaves us in the
morning she always eats a good breakfast
and takes a bath, and invariably has a little
gossip with Paul and Virginia. The window
is generally open for her towards sunset,
but if it happens to be shut she pecks at it
and calls us until we open it. She always
looks in before she enters, to see what sort
of company may be in the room. If she sees
any one she does not fancy, she waits quietly
in her ivy bower until they go away, before
she ventures to come in.

Two years ago in the winter our poor
Pierrot was very ill. He came to us for help,
and took refuge in my work-basket. Pierrette
did her utmost to induce him to go up to
her retreat on the looking-glass, but he was
far too weak to fly. Finding him deaf to her
counsel she became very angry, screamed at
him and flapped her wings, and at last seized
him on her back by the top of his head, and
shook him violently in the air as if she
wished to kill him. After repeating this
strange treatment, several times, she went to
roost herself. She never saw him again. I
sat up half the night trying to comfort poor
Pierrot: he seemed so much to enjoy being
breathed on and kept warm in my hands. I
hoped he might recover, for he crept under
the book-case and went to sleep, but Louise
found him in the morning lying quite dead
in the middle of the room.

Pierrette had no difficulty in finding
another mate, but not a second gentle
Pierrot. The new husband proved to be
violent in temper and somewhat despotic in
his notions. She brought her first brood after
this second marriage to show us before there
was a feather to be seen on any one of the
young ones. Pierrot the Second followed in
high wrath, scolded and picked at her in a
way that must have astonished her, and then
stood by while she carried them, every one,
home again. Ever since that adventure she
waits to bring us her little ones until they
are able to fly with her.

Pierrette has five broods of five eggs every
summer. This year, June, eighteen hundred
and fifty-seven, she has a second brood of full
fledged. She is, consequently, the mother of, at
least, a hundred and thirty young sparrows.

                    AUTUMN.

       I SAW the leaves drop trembling
          From crests of cony limes;
       The wind sang through the branches
          Most sorrow-waking rhymes.

       No flower in all the valleys
          Look'd up with face of mirth;
       But shroud-like vapour rested
          Upon the bloomless earth.

       Then fearful thoughts, too truth-like,
          Of inner change and blight
       Came o'er my startled spirit,
          As fell the early night.

       "But, Autumn," cried I, "scatter
          The leaves from forest-trees;
       And moan through sadden'd branches
          Thy wailing threnodies.

       But spare this heart the verdure
          That robed it in the spring,
       And let the summer's echoes
          Still round my pathway sing!

       Rest only on the valleys,
          Drear mist that bringest death!
        But breathe not on this bosom
          Thy joy-destroying breath!"

       MICROSCOPIC PREPARATIONS.

IT seems probable, from many symptoms,
that the microscope is about to become the
idol of the day; we appear to be on the eve
of a microscope mania. For some time past,
that fascinating instrument has taken its
rank as an indispensable aid to science. The
geologist confidently appeals to its evidence,
when he asserts that coal is only fossilised
vegetable substance; that chalk and other
important strata are in great part composed
of shells; that a minute fragment of a tooth
belonged to a reptile and not to a fish; that
a splinter of bone had traversed the air, ages
and ages ago, in the body of a flying lizard,
and not in that of a bird. For the anatomist,
the medical man, and the zoologist in general,
the microscope is not an instrument which
he can use or neglect at his pleasure. On
the contrary, the objects for which it must be
employed are determinate. It is destined to
teach a number of facts and exhibit a multitude
of organs, which can be studied neither
by the naked eye, nor by the aid of any other
instrument. Such are, the textures of the
tissues, the phenomena attending the course
of the blood, the vibrations of cilia in animalcules,
animals, and men; the contractions of
the muscular fibres, and many other things
of the highest interest. Besides these
learned pursuits, which are the business
of the comparative few, the microscope offers
an inexhaustible treasury of amusement to
crowds of amateurs who aim no higher
than to obtain a little useful information
respecting the nature of the ordinary objects
by which they are surrounded, and are
content to admire beauty and variety of
design, even when they cannot penetrate to
final causes. To the invalid or lame person
confined to the house, to the worn man of
business whose soul is weary of affairs, to the
lonely dweller in a country residence where
little or only uncongenial society is to be had,
—to such persons, and to many others, a few
plants and minerals from the nearest hedge
or stone-heap, a box of the commonest
insects, a half-score of wide-mouthed bottles
containing water-weeds—some from any
neighbouring pool, others from the seashore
—will supply a succession of entertainment,
which is incredible to those who have not