prey; suffice it for our present purpose to state that they may be generally recognized by their hooked beaks and stout feet, armed with strong hooked claws. They are among the feathered race what the carnivora, or flesh-devourers, are among beasts; but their destructive propensities, however calculated at first to shock our conceptions of order and harmony, are appointed with regard to the due adjustment of the balance of creation.

Upon some isolated pinnacle, some horrid crag of the Andes, we behold the nest of the condor-that giant among vultures. There she rears her brood, and from thence she surveys the plain far beneath in quest of food. Like the rest of the vulture family, the condor prefers carrion, with which it gorges itself to repletion, so that it becomes incapable of flight, and in this state is easily captured with the lasso of the expert Indian. After some of the eastern battles voracious animals will crowd from all quarters to the field, of which jackals, hyenas, and vultures are the chief; while vast multitudes will be seen in the air flocking to the general carnage. "In some parts of the torrid zone the carrion vultures haunt the towns in immense multitudes. In Carthagena they may be seen sitting on the roofs of the houses, or even stalking slowly along the streets. They

otherwise, by its intolerable stench, render the climate still more unwholesome than it is."

The lammer-geyer, or the bearded or lamb vulture, is described by Cuvier as the largest bird of prey on the continent. It attacks chamois, goats, sheep, marmots, &c., and even man on the edge of a precipice. Sailing on the air, above the summits of the stupendous Alps, it watches till its unwary victim approaches the edge of a precipice, or traverses the pass of a narrow ledge, and then, sudden and impetuous as the avalanche of its native regions, down it rushes, hurling the helpless animal into the abyss below, when, proudly wheeling round by a few gyrations, as if to contemplate the effect of its sanguinary deed, it plunges below to gorge on the yet quivering flesh. Though the bird prefers the fruits of its rapacious prowess, it does not refuse carrion; and it is often seen slowly sweeping along the ground toward the expected banquet. The following anecdote will illustrate its boldness and voracity: "Upon the highest top of the mountain Lamalmon," says a celebrated traveler in Abyssinia, "while my servants were refreshing themselves from that toilsome rugged ascent, and enjoying the pleasure of a most delightful climate, eating their dinner in the outer air, with several dishes

of goat's flesh before them, this enemy, as he turned out to be to them, suddenly appeared; he did not stoop rapidly from a height, but came flying slowly along the ground, and sat down close to the meat, within the ring the men had made round it. A great shout, or rather a cry of distress, called me to the place. I saw the creature stand for a minute, as if to recollect himself; while the servants ran for their lances and shields. I walked up as nearly to him as I had time to do. His attention was fully fixed upon the flesh. There were two large pieces, a leg and a shoulder, lying upon a wooden platter; into these he thrust both his claws, and carried them off; but I thought he still looked wistfully at the large piece which remained in the warm water. Away he went slowly along the ground, as he had come. The face of the cliff over which criminals are thrown took him from our sight." In a few min

THE LAMMER-GEYER.

utes, however, he returned, but he was shot by the traveler before he could procure a second freight.

The golden eagle was once an inhabitant of England; it still occupies the mountains of Scotland and Ireland, and occasionally makes its appearance in Wales. It is extensively spread over the European continent, and we have specimens from India. It has been generally thought to bear the same dominion over the birds which has been attributed to the lion over the quadrupeds. The following points of resemblance are given from Buffon:"Magnanimity is equally conspicuous in

both; they despise the small animals, and disregard their insults. It is only after a series of provocations, after being teased with the noisy or harsh notes of the raven or magpie, that the eagle determines to punish their temerity or their insolence with death. Besides, both disdain the possession of that property which is not the fruit of their own industry; rejecting with contempt the prey which is not procured by their own exertions. Both are remarkable for their temperance. This species seldom devours the whole of his game, but, like the lion, leaves the fragments and offal to the other animals. Though famished for want of prey, he disdains to feed upon carrion. Like the lion also he is solitary, the inhabitant of a desert, over which he reigns supreme, excluding all the other birds from his silent domain. It is more uncommon, perhaps, to see two pairs of eagles in the same tract

of mountain, than two families of lions in the same part of the forest. They separate from each other at such wide intervals as to afford ample range for subsistence; and esteem the value and extent of their dominion to consist in the abundance of the prey with which it is replenished. The eyes of the eagle have the glare of those of the lion, and are nearly of the same color; the claws are of the same shape; the organs of sound are equally powerful, and the cry equally terrible. Destined, both of them, for war and plunder, they are equally fierce, bold, and untractable."

The golden eagle feeds its young with the carcasses of such small animals as lambs, hares, and geese. An Irish countryman, during a summer of famine, obtained a comfortable subsistence for his family out of an eagle's nest, by clipping the wings of the young birds, thus retarding their flight, and tying them so as to increase their cries. This, while it prolonged the attention of the parent birds to their young, also quickened their speed in supplying their wants. It was well for the Irishman that he was not detected by the parents, otherwise he might have met with the fate of a peasant who some years ago

with an assurance as surprising as unexpected. The following anecdote will prove the enduring attachment of which this creature is capable. The late Colonel Johnson, says a recent writer, was ordered to Canada with his battalion, and being very fond of falconry, to which he had devoted much time and expense, he took with him two of his favorite peregrines, as his companions across the Atlantic. It was his constant habit during the voyage to allow them to fly every day, after "feeding them up," that they might not be induced to rake off after a passing sea-gull, or wander out of sight of the vessel. Sometimes their rambles were very wide and protracted; at others they would ascend to such a height as to be almost lost to the view of the passengers, who soon found them to be an effectual means of relieving the tedium of a long sea-voyage, and naturally took a lively interest in their welfare; but, as they were in the habit of returning regularly to the ship, no uneasiness was felt during their occasional absence. At last, one evening, after a longer flight than

There are several instances on record of children having fallen victims to the ferocity of this bird. In 1737, in Norway, a child two years of age was running from the house to his parents, who were working in the fields, when an eagle pounced upon him, and, in spite of the agonized screams of his parents, he was dragged away to the aerie of the eagle. Ray informs us that in one of the Orkneys a child twelve months old was seized and carried four miles to its nest; but the mother, inspired with courage by the occasion, followed the robber, clambered the mountain, and reseued the babe from the nest unhurt.

The courage, power, docility, and swiftness of the peregrine falcon rendered it a favorite in the days of falconry. The game at which it was flown were herons, cranes, wild ducks, &c., which it took by soaring above, and then, making its swoop, that is, darting down impetuously upon them, bore them with irresistible violence to the earth. The appearance of this hawk excites universal panic among the water-fowl. A notorious characteristic of the species is, that at the report of a gun it will sometimes come and carry off, from within thirty yards of the sportsman, a bird which he may have just shot,

The other-the prime favorite-was missing. Day after day passed away, and, however much he may have continued to regret his loss, Captain Johnson had at length made up his mind that it was irretrievable, and that he should never see him again. Soon after the arrival of the regiment in America, on casting his eyes over a Halifax newspaper, he was struck by a paragraph announcing that the captain of an American schooner had at that moment in his possession a fine hawk, which had suddenly made its appearance on board his ship during his passage from Liverpool. The idea at once occurred to Captain Johnson that this could be no other than his much-prized falcon; so, having obtained immediate leave of absence, he set out for Halifax, a journey of some days. On arrival, he lost no time in waiting on the commander of the schooner, announcing the object of his journey, and requesting that he might be allowed to see the bird; but the American had no idea of relinquishing his prize so easily, and stoutly refused to admit of the interview, "guessing" that it was very easy for an Englishman to lay claim to another man's property, but " calculating" that it was a great deal harder for him to get possession of it; and concluded by asserting in unqualified terms his entire

disbelief in the whole story. Captain Johnson, whose object, however, was rather to recover his falcon than to pick a quarrel with

LIFE.

ownership of the bird should be decided by an experiment, which several Americans who were present admitted to be perfectly reasonable, and in which their countryman was at last persuaded to acquiesce. It was this:-Captain Johnson was to be admitted to an interview with the hawkwho, by the way, had as yet shown no partiality for any person since her arrival in the New World, but, on the contrary, had rather repelled all attempts at familiarityand if at this meeting she should not only exhibit such unequivocal signs of attachment and recognition as should induce the majority of the bystanders to believe that he really was her original master, but, especially, if she should play with the buttons of his coat, then the American was at once to waive all claim to her. The trial was immediately made. The American went up-stairs, and shortly returned

THE PEREGRINE FALCON.

with the falcon; but the door was hardly opened before she darted from his fist and perched at once on the shoulder of her beloved and long-lost protector, evincing by every means in her power her delight and affection, rubbing her head against his cheek, and taking hold of the buttons of his coat and champing them playfully between her mandibles one after another. This was enough. The jury were unanimous. A verdict for the plaintiff was pronounced.

ciety. The world is like a magic-lantern, or the shifting scenes of a pantomime. Ten years convert the population of schools into men and women, the young into fathers and matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury the last generation but one. Twenty years convert infants into lovers and fathers and mothers, render youth the operative generations, decide men's fortunes and distinctions, convert active men into crawling drivelers, and bury all preceding generations. Thirty years raise an active generation from nonentity, change fascinating beauties into bearable old women, convert lovers into grandfathers, and bury the active generation, or reduce them to decrepitude and imbecility. Forty years, alas! change the face of all society. Infants are growing old, the bloom of youth and beauty has passed away, two active generations have been swept from the stage of life, names so cherished are forgotten, and unsuspected candidates for fame have started from the exhaustless womb of nature. Fifty years-why should any desire to retain affections from maturity for fifty years? It is to behold a world of which you know nothing, and to which you are unknown It is to weep for the generations long since passed-for lovers, for parents, for children, for friends in the grave. It is to see everything turned upside-down by the fickle hand of fortune and the absolute despotism of time. It is, in a word, to behold the vanity of life in all the vanities of display.

A WATER DRINKER. - Cobbett thus describes his own experience :-"In the midst of a society where wine or spirits are considered as of little more value than water, I have lived two years without either; and with no other drink but water, except when I have found it convenient to obtain milk: not an hour's illness; not a headache for an hour; not the smallest ailment; not a restless night; not a drowsy morning, have I known during these two famous years of my life. The sun never rises before me; I have always to wait for him to come and give me light to write by, while my mind is in full vigor, and while nothing has come to cloud its clearness."

MADAME GEORGE SAND:

HER BOOKS AND HER RELIGION.

stance and passion will sway the intellect; how mortified vanity will form excuses for itself; and how temper turns angrily upon

the immortal Göthe, and the Pantheists; and I incline to think that the fashion has set very strongly in their favor. Voltaire and the Encyclopædians are voted, now, barbares, and there is no term of reprobation strong enough for heartless Humes and Helvetiuses, who lived but to destroy, and who only thought to doubt. Wretched as Voltaire's sneers and puns are, I think there is something more manly and earnest even in them than in the present muddy French transcendentalism. Pantheism is the word now; one and all have begun to éprouver the besoin of a religious sentiment; and we are deluged with a host of gods accordingly. Monsieur de Balzac feels himself to be inspired; Victor Hugo is a god; Madame Sand is a god; that tawdry man of genius, Jules Janin, who writes theatrical reviews for the "Debats," has divine intimations; and there is scarcely a beggarly, beardless scribbler of poems and prose, but tells you, in his preface, of the sainteté of the sacerdoce littéraire; or a dirty student, sucking tobacco and beer, and reeling home with a grisette from the chaumière, who is not convinced of the necessity of a new Messianism," and will hickup, to such as will listen, chapters of his own drunken Apocalypse. Surely, the negatives of the olden days were far less dangerous than the assertions of the present; and you may fancy what a religion that must be which has such high-priests.

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There is no reason to trouble the reader with details of the lives of many of these prophets and expounders of new revelations. Madame Sand, for instance, I do not know personally, and can only speak of her from report. True or false, the history, at any rate, is not very edifying, and so may be passed over, but, as a certain great philosopher told us, in very humble and simple words, that we are not to expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, we may at least demand, in all persons assuming the character of moralist or philosopher, order, soberness, and regularity of life; for we are apt to distrust the intellect that we fancy can be swayed by circumstance or passion; and we know how circumVOL. II, No. 3.-R

cause he has given sentence against us! How often have we called the right wrong, because the right condemns us! And in the lives of many of the bitter foes of the Christian doctrine can we find no personal reason for their hostility? The men of Athens said it was out of regard for religion that they murdered Socrates; but we have had time since then to reconsider the verdict; and Socrates's character is pretty pure now, in spite of the sentence and the jury of those days.

The Parisian philosophers will attempt to explain to you the changes through which Madame Sand's mind has passed,the initiatory trials, labors, and sufferings which she had to go through,—before she reached her present happy state of mental illumination. She teaches her wisdom in parables, that are, mostly, a couple of volumes long; and began, first, by an eloquent attack on marriage, in the charming novel of "Indiana." 'Pity," cried she, "for the poor woman who, united to a being whose brute-force makes him her superior, should venture to break the bondage which is imposed on her, and allow her heart to be free."

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In support of this claim of pity, she writes two volumes of the most exquisite prose. What a tender, suffering creature is Indiana; how little her husband appreciates that gentleness which he is crushing by his tyranny and bitter scorn; how natural it is that, in the absence of his sympathy, she-poor, clinging, confiding creature-should seek elsewhere for shelter; how cautious should we be to call criminal-to visit with too heavy a censure-an act which is one of the natural impulses of a tender heart, that seeks but But why for a worthy object of love. attempt to tell the tale of beautiful Indiana? Madame Sand has written it so well that not the hardest-hearted husband in Christendom can fail to be touched by her sorrows, though he may refuse to listen to her argument. Let us grant, for argument's sake, that the laws of marriage, especially the French laws of marriage, press very cruelly upon unfortunate women.

But if one wants to have a question of