justice, would prove no mean competitor, with the acknowledged "knights of the thimble." For a needle, it only has its bill; for thread, fine fibres of wood; with these it constructs a fragile nest, by sewing to a living leaf pendent from the bough, another, which it had plucked for the purpose, thus making a curious little berth, which, lined with gossamer and down, rocks in the breeze, and dances in the blast, a cradle and a dwelling.

The annexed figure will give you a correct idea of the Tailorbird's nest. With what complacency the callow inmates look out upon the great world, as they rock all day.

The tailor is not the only mechanic among the feathered race; there are masons, and weavers, basket-makers, miners and carpenters. Among the last mentioned artisans, the ivory-billed woodpecker seems to be the very prince. The silent swamps of the Carolinas echo with oft-repeated strokes as of some distant woodsman; you look around for the cause, but no living being is in sight, save the squirrel that eyes you saucily for a moment, from a log near by, and is gone. Still you hear it; that same, incessant tap, and, at length, looking up, you discover, high on the trunk of a solid Cypress, the gaily plumed carpenter, excavating a winding cell, the destined birth-place of a race of carpenters, if the stealthy black snake, or inquisitive pine Martin, does not blight their

prospects, by making a breakfast of them some morning, while half-fledged truants from the nest."

The bank Swallow, with his chubby head, is a great miner. When you are passing the shelving banks of streams, or a road cut through small hills, this little bird will frequently salute you with his twitter, which resembles the noise of a cork turned in a bottle; now darting toward you so directly, that you are inclined to shield your eyes with your hand, and now in his zigzag flight, turning as swiftly away, with a suppressed "to weet, to weet," as if he had mistaken you for an acquaintance. He is amusing himself after a day of toil, and though rather amiable in his disposition, he makes sad havoc among the little winged tribes that sport for an hour, in the warm sun-beam; perhaps that note of his, "to weet," may be peculiarly significant of the amusement.

See that sand bank. Why, it is full of holes, made by these industrious little creatures. I declare, there is one at work this moment! How busily he plies his little bill; now sidewise, now up, now down, his long, sharp claws hold him securely as he works. If you look into one of those caves, you will find that the floor gradually ascends from the mouth, back. Why, do you think? To prevent the storm from beating, or the water from running into it! How admirably contrived! No pick-axe, no shovel, that little bill executes the whole.

A beautiful Sparrow found in Hindostan is a skilful basketmaker. It successfully eludes the snake and the monkey, by plaiting a bottle-shaped basket of long grass, separated into

apartments, and suspending it by the neck to the bough of the date-tree or acacia. Here is a representation of the nest:

Doubtless Pug's visage has often wriggled and twisted with ill-suppressed rage, and his swarthy countenance grown darker, as the retracted lips disclosed the ivory behind, when from some neighboring bough, eying this bottle with the opening at the bottom, he was forced to acknowledge, for once, his cunning outdone. But we need not fravel to Hindostan for basket-makers; in the thicket of Alder bushes by the creek, among the reeds and rushes of the swamp, or in the long grass of the meadow, are the Starling, the Bullfinch and the Thrush, all of a trade,

-Here is the work of a skilful weaver, the Baltimore Star

It is flax and wool woven into cloth; linsey-woolsey for all the world! Improved too, for it is sewed through and through with horse hair. I presume some careful woman in the neighborhood, has wondered what became of a skain or two of thread that was mysteriously missing from a number which she spread upon the grass to bleach. Doubtless the starling would tell her, if it could, that linen ready spun was very acceptable, and made excellent warp.

But the masons, a useful, hard-working class, must not be slighted. Among them, the Martin may be considered as master-builder, if we except that old millwright, the beaver. The martin is not only mason, but brick-maker. In the month of May, he arrives among us, from the fragrant groves of the sunny south. At break of day, while the folded leaves are yet wet with the dews of night, you may see him in the

newly-turned furrow, or by the brook, in quest of materials for a dwelling. Nothing comes amiss; particles of moist earth, slender twigs, bits of straws, locks of wool, are treas ures to him; yes, more favored than the oppressed Israelites in Egypt, the materials are not denied him. These he skilfully works and tempers into a mortar of great tenacity, and having selected a spot for his nest, beneath the sheltering eaves of some dwelling, whose inmates are not hostile to his little plans, (I am sorry to say, that the dwelling is not unfrequently a barn,) he lays the foundation. No sound of trowel or hammer,

"Like a tall pine, the noiseless fabric grows;"

each rising sun shines upon the advancing work. Sometimes indeed, it falls before it hardens; and, (shall I say it?) sometimes a wanton boy rudely demolishes the little fabric with sticks and stones, but it is a labor of love, and we have hardly time to lament the martin's lot, ere the breach is repaired.

Indeed it would almost seem that sparks of that reason, which renders man the lord of this lower world, had been given to some of the inferior animals. Plans of action are theirs, which if laid by man, would have passed unquestioned, for the productions of reason; a skill in architecture and an adaptation to circumstances, which our own British fathers had scarcely attained, or at least had never exhibited, previous to the Norman conquest; a real magnanimity, which, if displayed by a fellow man, would have awakened in our bosoms a respect for him. All these have been termed instinct, a word which is too often synonymous with mystery; and to this indefinable something, the actions of every animal, biped, quadruped and centiped, provided it was not a man, have been attributed; to this something, holding that inconceivable po