free from that morbid appetite for applause, and craving passion for notoriety, which keep some men constantly before the public, the calm and gentle assiduity of his useful career has, at times, been mistaken for inactivity.

President Kirkland has ever been the delight of the social circle. He possesses that contagious cheerfulness, equanimity, and good temper, flowing from the pure spring of a good heart, which makes all men happy in his company. He carries with him an atmosphere of benevolence, in which the spirit of contention expires, for want of its aliment, and which gives a double zest to the effusions of a mind rich in the stores of a various reading, an extensive observation of men, and a profound study of human society.

Upon the whole, his life and career, furnish one among the numerous examples of the rise of merit from an humble origin, and under no favorable circumstances, to the highest posts of honor and usefulness. It could scarcely have been expected, that the future President of the oldest University in the country, should have been the son of a poor missionary, born at the very out-posts of civilization, reared in infancy among the children of the forest, and, through childhood, favored with no advantages, beyond those of a frontier settlement. After all allowance is made for the propitious character of our institutions, by which the path is, in all cases, made plain and free to virtue and merit, it must be universally felt, that nothing but manifest talent of the highest cast, an exemplary life, assiduous effort, and a singularly happy temper, could have carried President Kirkland over the wide interval, which separated the starting point from the goal of his career. The imperfect outline, which we have sketched of his character, will give but a faint idea of it, to those, whom actual observation has not made acquainted with its worth. But with all, whom personal intercourse has qualified to judge of it, and especially with all those who had the good fortune to be the subjects of his parental care, at the University, we shall stand acquitted of exaggeration. They will be able to recal the familiar instances, the habitual exercise, the steady manifestation of his intellectual and moral excellence; and to their affection we commit his character to be embalmed.

OUR BIRDS.

A TALK IN THE WAY OF ORNITHOLOGY.

PART II.

THERE are about four hundred different Birds in the United States, three hundred and fifty of which, perhaps, may be found at some season of the year in the woods and fields in the neighborhood of Boston; yet how small a number of these are at all known to the great majority of our people! probably not fifty, out of the three hundred and fifty, would be recognized by name; and as to identifying individuals, people in general have limited their ornithological pursuits to that very shrewd performance of telling a "hawk from a handsaw." Our woods

are full of song, and most of the notes are familiar to our ears, yet ninety-nine out of a hundred of us take a Fly-catcher for a Robin, and know no distinction between a Goldfinch, a Summersylvia, and a Red-start, which we may hear singing every day for months together. Now we hold it to be a matter of some interest to know these little visiters, and nothing more than fair to requite, with a personal intimacy and welcome, the greeting offered by their pleasant strains.

No one can take a ramble for a quarter of an hour in the woods, in June, July, or August, without having his ears saluted by a sweet, rolling, melodious whistle from the lofty branches above his head ; this note is often taken for that of the Robin, though any person at all acquainted with the individual could distinguish the two species of melody, at any distance capable of transmitting the faintest of these sounds to his ear. This songster is the RED-EYED FLY-CATCHER, one of the most charming and sprightly musicians that our forests can boast of. He is about the size of a Sparrow, and is of an olive brown color. His lively and agreeable note is the charm of our woods from morning to night, being kept up with a spirit and perseverance equalled by few of the feathered choir. The tallest trees and the thickest woods are the favorite resort of this bird; on open plains or among low thickets, he is never seen; but among the giant arms of the old oaks, or in the dense foliage of the walnuts, or on the top of a tall and majestic elm, he is sure to take his stand and make the dark shadows of the forest ring with his sonorous warble. His performances, indeed, are not confined to the country, but our most populous cities are greeted by his visits. In a fine summer day as you walk through the mall in Boston, you may hear his mellow and enlivening whistle among the trees of that beautiful promenade, and in passing along the busiest streets, where a towering elm lifts its fresh green canopy over the brick walls, the little rustic may be heard, straining his melodious throat amid the concert of rattling carts and creaking weelbarrows.

The nest of this charming musician is quite a curiosity; it is built often on the horizontal branch of a young walnut, oak, or hornbeam, six, eight, or ten feet from the ground, and is what is called a basket nest, hanging from a forked branch by the edges, like the pocket of a billiard-table, or a dip-net; they are built so near the ground as to afford opportunity for observing the mechanism pursued by the builder; and the ingenuity of this little architect in knotting his looped strings in regular triangle, and weaving his chopped leaves into the warp of his habitation, till he has brought it into proper symmetry and mathematical adjustment, is enough to fill us with admiration.

"Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves!" It would seem a shame that so much ingenuity and industry should not be allowed the full enjoyment of the fruits of their toil; and yet nature-Heaven bless the mark!-does at times play unaccountable pranks. This same nidicular handywork-to what base uses may it come! The Fly-catcher's nest, so snug and cosey, is a favorite resort of the Cow-BUNTING, and the cradle, of course, in which a changeling usurps the honor of a legitimate heir. Mayhap you never heard of the interloper aforesaid. The Cow-bunting is a bird that never builds a nest, but sneaks into that of another, and leaves its eggs to the care of strangers. If you should

chance to espy in your walks through the woods, a black, impish looking rascal, fluttering from fence to bush, like a thieving caitiff, afraid to be seen,-skulking among the thickets, and prying into nooks and corners with the air of a catchpole or a pickpocket,-knock him down, cape saxa manu, cape robora pastor; stop his privateering; nullify him! that is the very villain, on the look-out for a nest in which to father a spurious progeny upon some unlucky wight, more industrious and Christian-like, than himself.

You have heard of the Cuckoo, and his tricks of a similar stamp to this, the European Cuckoo, I should premise,-for the Cuckoo of America, is a bird of different habits, and builds a nest of his own. The Cow-bunting is the only American bird, known to be guilty of the practice abovementioned, and, as I have just remarked, may be seen in the woods, sharking about with a stealthy movement and villanous aspect, silent and watchful, lest the "very stones should prate of his whereabout ;" and peeping and nuzzling into every odd corner for a market in which to pass off his counterfeits. Many is the decent, industrious, and pains-taking little citizen, that is plagued with the visits of this prowling customer, and there is no getting clear of him, for the villain's craft is equal to his impudence; a small bird will be driven from his nest by the intruder, a large one will be watched for the moment when his back is turned. The little Wittachee* cannot hide his cradle in too close a seclusion for the eye of the prowler; the red-eyed Fly-catcher's airy basket is looked upon as constituting specially desirable quarters; the Tawny-thrush-simple fellow,-must lend a hand at bringing up the infant trouvé; the Cat-bird is not cunning enough to keep out of the scrape, though various devices are resorted to by some of these birds to rid themselves of the incumbrance; some will abandon their nests when the Cow-bird has laid in them; but, in general, birds will not leave eggs of their own, when a spurious one is thrust into their company. Of course, when the eggs are hatched, the brood are all equally taken care of by the dam, interloper cum ceteris, though, in most cases, the Cow-bunting is the first hatched, and as he quickly out grows the rest of the brood, and, with his ample dimensions and narrow quarters, feels a good deal of that incommodity which troubled our venerable friend and acquaintance, the old lady who lived in a spoon, he makes short work with his brother nestlings, and elbows them overboard without ceremony. Every Cow-bunting that is reared is the destruction of three or four other birds.

The Cow-bunting is peculiar to this country, and receives its name from its habit at certain seasons, of frequenting the cowpens to pick up grain and seeds; it is sometimes called Cow-bird, Cowpen-bird, and Blackbird, which reminds me of many other confusions of names in our ornithology, that occasion great error and perplexity, to one not much acquainted with natural history. Our Blue Jay, for instance, is called in Virginia, the Bluebird; the Bluebird, is called there the Blue-sparrow. But the oddest perplexity is made by confounding together the Partridge, Quail, and Pheasant, in such inextricable confusion, that a traveler from Massachusetts to the South, would be sorely puzzled to tell which was which, without turning to a manual

* Sylvia Marilandica.

of Ornithology. There is a bird in New-England, called a Partridge ; this bird is called a Pheasant, in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. There is a bird called a Partridge, in the aforesaid Southern States, and this bird is called a Quail in New-England; but the best of the joke is, that this Partridge, or Pheasant, is neither a Partridge, nor a Pheasant, but a Ruffed Grous. There are no Partridges, or Pheasants, in the United States.

The WARBLING FLY-CATCHER I should have mentioned along with his brother of the red-eye; the song of this bird is, perhaps, the sweetest and most agreeable of all the tuneful choir: with a note less vigorous and emphatic than the other, he far excels him in harmonious softness of tone, and the smooth, voluble flow of his musical strains. He is much less common than the Red-eye, and I do not recollect ever to have heard him within the precincts of the city; but in a woody spot in the country, or on an elm or chesnut, near your farmhouse, whenever you hear from out the leaves a sweet, melting, continuous warble, in a low, gentle strain, yet clear and distinct; tender and approaching to languid, yet not deficient in fulness or effect; never harsh, sharp, abrupt or strong, but ever liquid, clear, and soothing, you may discover the bird I have been describing. His nest is built in the common way, in the high branches of a tree, generally an elm. He shows a considerable fondness for the society of man, by nestling near his dwellings, and his confidence and familiarity should be returned with hospitable protection,-a requital no less merited by his sociable disposition, than the surpassing sweetness of his voice.

Of the Fly-catcher tribe, we have various other individuals, more or less eminent for song, as the White-eye, the Red-start, and others so little known as to have no popular name. These birds, as their appellation signifies, live solely on flies, moschetoes, bugs, &c. so that the services they perform are not limited to the sphere of their musical capacities. Some of them are hardly ever seen out of the thickest woods, as these parts abound generally in insects. The RED-start, must be looked for in the deepest and darkest recesses of the forest. This is a handsome little bird, of a dark brown color, with a beautiful orange on the shoulders, and white at the breast. His note is much like that of a Goldfinch or Yellow-bird, and, among the thick foliage of the pines or walnuts, you may observe him darting round and round from one limb to another in pursuit of his game, snapping up flies and moschetoes, one after another, to the tune of fifty or a hundred per meal; the havoc, indeed, made by all of them among insects is prodigious. It is a fortunate and wise provision of nature that such a check should be provided to the multiplication of these insignificant, but troublesome creatures. All animated species have their irremediable grievances; and to be gobbled up by birds seems to be one of the ills that fly-flesh is heir to.

"Speaking of every thing," says Caleb Quotem," reminds me of nothing!" Speaking of catching flies reminds me of political economy. Mr. Malthus, and his acolytes, might draw an argument upon analogy from the preceding fact, and others of a kindred nature, which mark the whole scheme of animated existence-in favor of his doctrine of superfecundity, and the necessity of the preventive check. There

is a very manifest superfecundity in the production of birds, and a very evident and operative preventive check in the way of this increase. Most of those familiar to us, lay four or five, and sometimes more, eggs; the Marsh-wren lays seven or eight; and many of these birds breed twice or thrice in a season; yet do we find that any species is more numerous now than it was at any preceding period? The geometrical ratio in which they ought to increase, according to calculation, is enormous; but for all this, it does not appear that any increase takes place from year to year, even in those species which are not molested by man. An attentive observation will explain this phenomenon. The system of animated nature is one great round of destruction; hardly an inhabitant of the forest lives otherwise than by destroying some other species of animal. Both the eggs and young of birds are exposed to such a series of hazards, that, after considering their number and degree, we see cause rather for surprise, that whole species are not exterminated, than for wonder at their not increasing out of measure.

The Cow-bunting, as has been already remarked, destroys a vast number; perhaps one third of the small birds' nests will be found upon examination to have a Cow-bunting's egg in them; but this is nothing to the ravages committed among the eggs and young, by the Cuckoos, Squirrels, Pole-cats, Snakes, Owls, Rats, Foxes, &c. who are continually prowling about in search of nests. When full grown, their hazards are far from being at an end; the Hawks, Owls, and Foxes, with a host of other enemies, are ready to dart upon them at every favorable opportunity; by this means a proper balance is kept up in their numbers, and no species is suffered to multiply beyond a certain limit. The philosopher, as is remarked by the great French naturalist, contemplates with pain a system so apparently cruel, yet he admires the skilful adaptation of parts, and the efficiency with which the means are fitted to the end. The individuals, who are portions of this great scheme, may rest satisfied that their private loss is public gain, and thus to fall a personal sacrifice to the proper operation of the system, would be, as Lord Byron said of being drowned in the Lake of Geneva, "classical, but not agreeable !"

:

But stay-I have been digressing; we came forth to see, and not to philosophize. Let us look around; the dark forest environs us on every side, and the deep dell at our feet is black in the shadows of the thick pine boughs the hill sides are shaggy with a deep forest of cedars, and the fitful breeze swelling through the dense mass of foliage, sounds like the hollow roar of the ocean; a few sunburnt rocks lift their mossy brows above the herbage, gleaming in gray and reddish masses among the fresh green thickets; all is a solitary wild, and the stillness of the scene is only broken by the shrill note of the Pinewarbler, who, now and then from the dark leaves of the evergreens, trolls forth a rattling cry, which in the lonely gloom of the woods has a melancholy sound quite in unison with the savage character of the scenery.

These secluded spots and deep recesses are the favorite haunts of the WOOD-THRUSH, a bird whose note is possessed of singular melody and compass; he is very rarely to be met with, but his song, if it but once strike the ear, cannot fail to arrest your attention instantaneously,