THE PAISLEY PACKMAN. 65 splendid show. The naturalist had next a painful opportunity, of which he took advantage, to observe some traits of their character. Having shot down several, some of which were only wounded, the whole flock, in utter and unselfish disregard of their own safety, swept repeatedly around their fallen companions, and again settled on a low tree, within twenty yards of the ruthless Paisley packman. At each successive discharge, although "showers of them fell," yet the affection of the survivors seemed rather to increase; for, after a few circuits round the scene of slaughter, they again alighted, and gazed on their mangled companions with such manifest sympathy and grief "as entirely disarmed me." Their flight is powerful, like that of a wild pigeon, sometimes direct, frequently circuitous, with a variety of easy and elegant meanders, as if for the very pleasure of gracefulness, which is, no doubt, in itself a most exquisite thing. These birds are much attached to ancient sycamores, in the hollows of which they often roost, thirty or forty sometimes entering at the same hole. There they cling to the sides in a perpendicular position, holding fast by feet and bill. In the fall of the year, when the kernels of their favourite cockle-bur (Xanthium strumarium) are ripe, they swarm along the coast, or high ground of the Mississippi, above New Orleans, for a great extent, and they are there killed and eaten by the inhabitants. Wilson thought the flesh very indifferent" merely passable "--although he was then alone in the wooded wilderness with little else to choose, and the best of all sauce, a keen appetite, to recommend it. A natural supply of favourite food probably influences the movements and geographical distribution of this interesting species. They do not seem to occur either in champaign or mountainous districts, but abound along the banks of rivers, lagoons, and water-courses. They are very fond of orchards, and often, out of mere wantonness, will pluck the apples from the trees, and drop them on the ground untasted. This practice is especially common in the Arkansas territory. They are also very fond of mulberries, which they eat piecemeal, holding them in the foot. Audubon informs us, that they attack outstanding stacks of grain, occasioning great waste. Their nestling habits are not so fully known as might have been expected. They are said to incubate in hollow trees, several females depositing their eggs, three in number, of a pale-greenish white, in the same cavity. We have dwelt at rather too great length on a single species, but we deem it interesting (and entitled to our gratitude) as the only parrot which ever wings its way into comparatively northern climes. J. W. AN EASTERN APOLOGUE. ABDALLAH sat at his morning meal, when there alighted on the rim of his goblet a little fly. It sipped an atom of syrup and was gone. But it came next morning, and the next, and the next again, till at last the scholar noticed it. Not quite a common fly, it seemed to know that it was beautiful, and it soon grew very bold. And lo! a great wonder it became daily larger, and yet larger, till there could be discerned in the size as of a locust the appearance as of a man. From an handbreath it reached the stature of a cubit; and still, so winning were its ways, that it found more and more favour with this son of infatuation. It frisked like a satyr, and it sang like a peri, and like a moth of the evening it danced on the ceiling, and, like the king's gift, whithersoever it turned it prospered. The eyes of the simple one were blinded, so that he could not in all this perceive the subtilty of an evil gin. Therefore the lying spirit AN EASTERN APOLOGUE. 67 waxed bolder and yet bolder, and whatsoever his soul desired of dainty meats he freely took; and when the scholar waxed wroth, and said, "This is my daily portion from the table of the mufti: there is not enough for thee and me," the dog-faced deceiver played some pleasant trick, and caused the silly one to smile. Until, in process of time, the scholar perceived, that as his guest grew stronger and stronger, he himself waxed weaker and weaker. Now, also, there arose frequent strife betwixt the demon and his dupe, and at last the youth smote the fiend so sore that he departed for a season. And when he was gone, Abdallah rejoiced and said, "I have triumphed over mine enemy; and whatsoever time it pleaseth me, I shall smite him so that he die. Is he not altogether in mine own power?" But after not many days the gin came back again, and this time he was arrayed in goodly garments, and he brought a present in his hand; and he spake of the days of their first friendship, and he looked so mild and feeble, that his smooth words wrought upon this dove without a heart, and saying, "Is he not a little one?" he received him again into his chamber. On the morrow, when Abdallah came not into the assembly of studious youth, the mufti said, "Wherefore tarrieth the son of Abdul? Perchance he sleepeth." Therefore they repaired even to his chamber, but to their knocking he made no answer. Wherefore the mufti opened the door, and lo! there lay on the divan the dead body of his disciple. His visage was black and swollen, and on his throat was the pressure of a finger broader than the palm of a mighty man. All the stuff, the gold, and the changes of raiment, belonging to the hapless one were gone, and in the soft earth of the garden were seen the footsteps of a giant. The mufti measured one of the prints, and behold! it was six cubits long. Reader, canst thou expound the riddle? Is it the Bottle or the Betting-book? Is it the Billiard-table or the Theatre? Is it Smoking? Is it Laziness? Is it Novelreading? But know that an evil habit is an elf constantly expanding. It may come in at the key-hole, but it will soon grow too big for the house. Know, also, that no evil habit can take the life of your soul, unless you yourself nourish it and cherish it, and by feeding it with your own vitality give it a strength greater than your own. THE EVERLASTING HILLS. ON to the Future! brightly there There fragrant flowers are blooming fair, Do we not thus our spirits raise Yet feel we, in our onward course, But the Everlasting Hills arise, And we may ever fix our gaze Upon their cloudless height, Nor fear to find our endless days In prospect only bright. C. D. THE BLACK FOREST. CHAPTER I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. AFTER scrambling over pine-covered hills the whole of that sultry Wednesday, July 14, 1852, in the evening we looked down on the valley of the Ens, and saw by the blue smoke that the fraus of the Forest were preparing the evening meal. The drag was put on the wheel, and after grinding and grating, skimming and skating down the dizzy zig-zag, we rattled and clattered over the causeway right into the heart of Wildbad, and, like so many pistol-shots, the cracks of the postilion's whip brought to the door of "The Bear" Herr Klump and all his myrmidons. There is no sensation comparable to a scene entirely fresh and foreign. The first time we left the island we found ourselves ashore at Havre. With the green-fronted houses, the blue-frocked workmen, and the red-legged soldiers, intense in the sunshine; with porters so accomplished and awe-inspiring, for they made better bows and spoke better French than an English earl; with boys so civil in their sport, and with workmen and their wives walking arm in arm:-the whole was so radiant and graceful that, coming from London, we felt as if we had exchanged a workshop for an out-of-doors drawing-room, and at first we sneaked about blushing at our own barbarism; nor was it till reassured by the weight of our purse and a timely remembrance of Waterloo, that we regained a proper feeling of our own superiority. Neither can we forget the first impressions of Holland-the sudden lifting of the curtain which revealed |