and is heated when the sun is at the other | shores, and yielding the thick vapor called tropic, and when our regions are cold. The the Garua, which serves instead of rain, we cool current flows over the water into the have already talked. Upon the table-land space left by expanded air in Asia, when of Mexico, in parts of Guatemala and Calithat continent is warmed, from April to fornia, for the same reason, rain is very rare, October, making the southwest monsoon. But the grandest rainless districts are those After October, southern Africa begins her occupied by the great desert of Africa, exturn of summer, and the monsoon changes tending eastward over portions of Arabia with a little conflict in the way of storm and Persia, to a desert province of the Beand cloud, and the air flows during the other loochees; districts presently continued in six months to the other continent, creating the heart of Asia over the great desert of the northeast monsoon. The end of March Gobi, the table-land of Tibet and part of and the beginning of April, the end of Sep- Mongolia. In all these, are five or six miltember and the beginning of October, are lions of square miles of land that never taste the stormy periods of monsoon changing. a shower. Elsewhere the whole bulk of Water currents are determined by these water that falls annually in the shape of constant winds, and each monsoon brings a rain, is calculated at seven hundred and rainy season to the coast on which it blows. sixty millions of millions of tuns. The monsoon region extends beyond the coasts of Borneo and Celebes, and on the coasts of China, northward to Japan. Monsoon is a name drawn from an Arabic word, implying season. Prevalent winds on a smaller scale are determined in many other portions of the globe by local peculiarities of land and sea. Thus the great desert, the Sahara, heated intensely by our summer sun, pours up a current of ascending air, and sucks cool air out of the Mediterranean; on that sea, therefore, in the summer, a north wind prevails, and for the same reason it is easier to sail up than down the Nile. In equalizing temperature, in wafting clouds over the land, and causing them to break and fall in fertilizing showers, in creating and fostering the art of navigation, by which man is civilized, the winds perform good service. Their pure current washes out the stagnant exhalations from our homes, our fields, our persons; breaks the ripe fruit from the tree, and sows it at a distance from its parent plant, where it may grow in the free air, not overshadowed. Without winds, winter would be one monotony of sun. The crisp snow, and the woolly clouds, the delightful rustle of the summer forest, and the waving of the autumn corn, the glory of the sunset, and the wonder of the rainbow,-the world would have wanted these had not the winds been taught to do their Master's bidding. After all, wind and rain prove more than the necessity of carry stupid, when he rejoiced in telling how "the wind began again with a burst Let us apply now some of the principles we have discussed. The trade-winds blowing equably, do not deposit much of their vapor while still flowing over the Atlantic. Out at sea it seldom rains within the tradewinds; but when they strike the east coasting umbrellas. And, after all, Tom was not of America rain falls; and the rain-fall on that coast, within the limits of the tradewinds, is notoriously excessive. The chain of the West India Islands stands ready to take (in the due season) a full dose; the rain-fall at St. Domingo is one hundred and fifty inches. But the winds having traversed the breadth of the continent, deposit their last clouds on the western flanks of the Andes, and there are portions, accordingly, of the western coast on which no season will expend a drop of rain. Thus in Peru it rains once, perhaps, in a man's lifetime; and an old man may tell how once, when he was quite a boy, it thundered. Of the cold Antarctic current slipping by the Peruvian Of course it is understood that violent friction of the lower surface of a wind upon the upper surface of the sea, will raise the waves. The sea, in a gale, is a condition which all people understand. There are, however, certain winds, obeying their own laws, which produce storms at sea of a peculiar nature. These are typhoons and hurricanes. The hurricane is a remarkable storm wind, peculiar to certain portions of the world. It ward of these islands, trace the outline of your egg towards the west, turning its corner, and still tracing on towards the northeast, as if travelling to Europe: leave off now, and you have sketched the ordinary path of a West Indian hurricane. Thunder and lightning frequently attend a hurricane, and, more especially in the southern hemisphere, dense sheets of rain. Clearly, it is most important that a ship's captain, overtaken by a hurricane, should know the nature and exact course of the storm. A horn-book is now published, by the use of which he readily obtains this knowledge, which enables him to put his ship so as she can ride safely until the hurricane is gone. Without such knowledge, puzzled by the changing wind, he perhaps drives before it, and is whirled round, circle after circle, dragged through the very road of danger; or, he escapes into the middle of a circle, has a little breathing time, and presently the crash returns; or, he gets out of the main course, and, through ignorance, encounters it again. Shipwrecks innumerable have been caused in this way. In the present day, though we have not yet established a full theory concerning hurricanes, the sailor has been taught to step out of their path; and that is something practical, for which a naval country owes its thanks (perhaps something more) to Colonel Reid and Mr. Piddington. The typhoon, a relation of the hurricane's, is of Chinese extraction. It is met with only in the China seas, not so far south as the Island of Mindanao, nor so far north as Corea, except upon the eastern borders of Japan. A typhoon walks abroad not oftener than about once every three or four years; and that is quite often enough. You may believe any thing of a typhoon. Robert Fortune says, that when he was at sea in a typhoon, a fish weighing thirty or forty pounds was blown out of the water, and fell through the skylight into the cabin. That might be believed of a typhoon from a less trustworthy informant. Of local storms and currents caused, inland or out at sea, by inequalities of temperature, as, for example, by the warm current of the gulf-stream, we need not particularly speak. The storms and the raintorrents of Cape Horn, where one hundred and fifty-three inches of rain have been And there are some to whom the Word hath sworn "Into my rest ye shall not enter:" there LUTHER. measured in forty-one days, and where the | With the free-born, the princely heir may be; whole year is a rainy season, we can only mention. To the simoom we give a nod of recognition; verily, that is a penetrating wind, which clogs with sand the works of a double-cased gold watch, in the waistcoat pocket of a traveller. We wave our hands likewise to the Italian sirocco, and the Egyptian khamsin, and the dry harmattan; and so our dry talk ends. It is raining still. Raining on the just and on the unjust, on the trees, the corn, and the flowers, on the green fields and the river, on the lighthouse-bluff and out at sea. It is raining on the graves of some whom we have loved. When it rains upon a mellow summer-evening, it is beneficently natural to most of us to think of that, and to give those verdant places their quiet share in the hope and freshness of the morrow. SONNETS BY A LADY. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I. "My holy mother made reply, Dear child, it is my priest."-Lyra Apostolica. On whom thy lips, so beautiful, have smiled, OXFORD. II. "For thou dost Boothe the heart, thou Church of Rome ! Of service in thy Saviour's holy home."-Lyra Apostolica, (As bond-slaves should be, who have turned and To their dark chains, and chosen eternal woe,) That ye denounce them, for the bond-slave ne'er III. We deify him not. Earth held him bound, Whose mighty depths the shrinking ear astound, The one eternal Church. Far in the skies His name is known, and here, on earth, beware LUTHER'S GRAVE. IV. Thou noble Rhine-land! hadst thou nothing more THE humming-bird tribe is nearly confined to the tropical portions of the New World; the southern continent as far as the tropic of Capricorn, and the great archipelago of islands between Florida and the mouth of the Orinoco, literally swarm with them. A high temperature is, however, by no means essential for their existence, as the most beautiful species are found at an elevation of from seven to twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, and one of remarkable brilliancy inhabits Chimborazo, at the height of fifteen thousand feet. Other species live in the dreary climate of Terra del Fuego; and Captain King saw many of these birds flitting about with perfect satisfaction during a heavy.snow-storm near the straits of Magellan. In the humid island of Chiloe the humming birds darting between the dripping branches, agreeably enlighten the scene and Juan Fernandez-sacred to early associations—has two species peculiar to itself. Captain Woodes Rogers, who visited this island in 1708, and took Alexander Selkirk from it, says, " And here are also humming. birds about as big as bees, their bill about the bigness of a pin; their legs proportionable to their body. Their feathers mighty small but of most beautiful colors. They are seldom taken or seen but in the evening, when they fly about, and sometimes when dark into the fire." * It is from the noise produced by the vibration of its wings that the humming-bird derives its name; for rapidity of flight it is quite without an equal, and to this end the shape and structure of its body beautifully tend. In no birds are the pectoral muscles-the chief agents in flight-so largely developed, and in none are the wings and the individual feathers so wonderfully adapted for rapid locomotion; the tail, though presenting every conceivable modification of form is always made available as a powerful rudder, aiding and directing the flight; the feet, too, are singularly and disproportionately small, so that they are no obstruction to its progress through the air. Several species have the feet enveloped in most beautiful fringes of down, as if each were passed through a little muff, either white, red, or black. The eggs of humming birds are two in number, white, and of an oblong form; but the nests in which they are contained are almost as marvellous as the birds themselves. What will be said of a nest made of thistledown-and yet one is to be seen in Mr, Gould's collection. The finest down, the most delicate bark, the softest fungi, the warmest moss-all are made available by the different species of these lovely birds, and not less various are the localities in which the diminutive nests are placed. A tiny object is seen weighing down the streaming leaf of a bamboo overhanging a brook; it is one of these nestlets attached to the point of the fragile support, and waving with it in the breeze. Another tribe prefers the feathery leaves of the fern, whilst the tip of the graceful palm-leaf is the favorite bower of a third species; but in every instance, the spot is admirably selected to preclude marauding serpents, or monkeys, from destroying the eggs and callow young. The down of the cotton tree, banded round with threads of spiders' webs, forms the fairy abode of the Mango humming. bird. This silky filamentous down is borne • Harris's Voyages, vol. i. p. 157. There builds her nest, the humming bird, upon the air, and though so impalpable as | which perpetually drips from the roof, and to be inhaled by man in the breath he in- which, in the dry season, is a most valuable spires, it is diligently collected by these resource. Beyond this, which is very oblittle creatures. They may be seen, sus- scure, the eye penetrates to a larger area, pended in the air, battling with a puff of deeper still, which receives light from some down, which, sailing with the gentle breeze, other communication with the air. Round coquettishly eludes the stroke of the eager the projections and groins of the front, the beak: filament after filament is however roots of the trees above have entwined, and secured, and borne in triumph to complete to a fibre of one of these, hanging down, the elfin bower. not thicker than a whipcord, was suspended a humming-bird's nest containing two eggs. It seemed to be composed wholly of moss, was thick, and attached to the rootlet by its side. One of the eggs was broken. I did not disturb it, but, after about three weeks, visited it again. It had been apparently handled by some curious child, for both eggs were broken, and the nest was evidently deserted. But while I lingered in the romantic place, picking up some of the land shells which were scattered among the rocks, suddenly I heard the whirr of a hummingbird, and, looking up, saw a female Polytmus hovering opposite the nest with a mass of silk cotton in her beak. Deterred by the sight of me, she presently retired to a twig a few paces distant, on which she sat. I immediately sank down among the rocks, as quietly as possible, and remained perfectly still. In a few seconds she came again, and after hovering a moment, disappeared behind one of the projections, whence, in a few seconds, she emerged again and flew off. I then examined the place, and found, to my delight, a new nest-in all respects like the old one-unfinished, affixed to another twig not a yard from it. I again sat down among the stones in front, where I could see the nest, not concealing myself, but remaining motionless, waiting for the petite bird's reThe same able observer gives the follow- appearance. I had not to wait long. A ing account of the nest-building of one of loud whirr, and there she was, suspended these elegant birds. The scene was at a in the air before her nest. She soon espied place called Bognie, on the Bluefields Moun- me, and came within a foot of my eyes, tain, in Jamaica. "About a quarter of a hovering just in front of my face. I remainmile within the woods, a blind path, choked ed still, however, when I heard the whirring up with bushes, descends suddenly beneath of another just above me-perhaps the mate an overhanging rock of limestone, the face-but I durst not look towards him lest the of which presents large projections and hanging points incrusted with a rough tuberculous sort of stalactite. At one corner of the bottom there is a cavern, in which a tub is fixed to receive water of great purity, Preparatory to the nidification is the important preliminary of courting, and on this delicate proceeding Mr. Gosse throws a light. In a cage were placed two long-tailed males and a female. “The latter interested me much," says he; "for, on the next day after her introduction, I noticed that she had seated herself by a male, on a perch occupied only by them two, and was evidently courting caresses. She would hop sideways along the perch, by a series of little quick jumps, till she reached him, when she would gently peck his face and then recede, hopping and shivering her wings, and presently approach again, to perform the same actions. Now and then she would fly over him, and make as if she were about to perch on his back, and practise other little endearments."* We regret to say that the cold-blooded longtailed gentleman was utterly indifferent to all these delicate attentions, and sat gloom ily chewing the cud of his own reflections: a few days afterwards, the lady-bird made her escape, and we hope soon ceased to wear the willow. • "The Birds of Jamaica," by P. H. Gosse, 1847. turning of my head should frighten the female. In a minute or two the other was gone, and she alighted again upon the twig, where she sat some little time preening her feathers, and apparently clearing her mouth from the cotton fibres, for she now and then swiftly projected the tongue an inch and a |