yields a large quantity. Turpentine is one of the substances called resinous; it is sticky, transparent, very inflammable, and will not mix with water, but will dissolve in spirits of wine.

Geo. What is it used for?

Tut. It is used medicinally, particularly in the composition of plasters and ointments. It also is an ingredient in varnishes, cements, and the like. An oil distilled from turpentine is employed in medicine, and is much used by painters for mixing up their colours. What remains after getting this oil, is common rosin. All these substances take fire very easily, and burn with a great flame; and the wood of the pine has so much of this quality, when dry, that it has been used in many countries for torches.

Har. I know deal shavings burn very briskly. Geo. Yes; and matches are made of bits of deal dipped in brimstone.

Tut. True; and when it was the custom to burn the bodies of the dead, as you read in Homer and other old authors, the pines and pitchtrees composed great part of the funeral pile.

Har. But what are pitch-trees? Does pitch grow upon trees?

Tut. I was going on to tell you about that. Tar is a product of the trees of this kind, especially of one species, called the pitch pine. The wood is burned in a sort of oven made in the earth, and the resinous juice sweats out, and acquires a peculiar taste and a black colour from the fire. This is tar. Tar, when boiled down to dryness, becomes pitch.

Geo. Tar and pitch are chiefly used about ships, are they not?

Tut. They resist moisture, and therefore are of great service in preventing things from decaying that are exposed to wet. For this reason,

the cables and other ropes of ships are well soaked with tar; and the sides of ships are covered with ' pitch mixed with other ingredients. Their seams, too, or the places where the planks join, are filled with tow dipped in a composition of rosin, tallow, and pitch, to keep out the water. Wood for paling, for piles, coverings of roofs, and other purposes of the like nature, are often tarred over. Cisterns and casks are pitched to prevent leaking. Har. But what are sheep tarred for, after they are sheared?

Tut. To cure wounds and sores in their skin. For the like purposes, an ointment made with tar is often rubbed upon children's heads. Several parts of the pine are medicinal. The tops and green cones of the spruce fir are fermented with treacle, and the liquor, called spruce beer, is much drunk in America.

Geo. Is it pleasant?

Tut. Not to those who are unaccustomed to it. Well-I have now finished my lesson, so let us walk.

Har. Shall we go through the grounds?

Tut. Yes; and then we will view some of the different kinds of fir and pine more closely, and I will show you the difference of their leaves and cones, by which they are distinguished.

THE ROOKERY.

There the hoarse voic'd hungry Rook,
Near her stick-built nest doth croak,
Waving on the topmost bough.

These lines Mr. Stangrove repeated, pointing up to a rookery, as he was walking in an avenue of tall trees, with his son Francis.

Francis. Is that a rookery, papa ?

Mr. St. It is. Do you hear what a cawing the birds make?

Fr. Yes-and I see them hopping about among the boughs. Pray, are not rooks the same with crows?

Mr. St. They are a species of crow; but they differ from the carrion crow and raven in not living upon dead flesh, but upon corn and other seeds, and grass. They indeed pick up beetles and other insects, and worms. See, what

a number of them have lighted on yonder ploughed field, almost blacking it over.

Fr. What are they doing?

Mr. St. Searching for grubs and worms. You see the men in the field do not molest them, for they do a great deal of service by destroying grubs, which, if they were suffered to grow to winged insects, would do much mischief to the trees and plants.

Fr. But do they not hurt the corn?

Mr. St. Yes-they tear up a good deal of green corn, if they are not driven away. But upon the whole, rooks are reckoned the farmers' friends; and they do not choose to have them destroyed.

Fr. Do all rooks live in rookeries?

Mr. St. It is the general nature of them to associate together, and build in numbers on the same or adjoining trees. But this is often in the midst of woods or natural groves. However, they have no objection to the neighbourhood of man, but readily take to a plantation of tall trees, though it be close to a house; and this is commonly called a rookery. They will even fix their habitations on trees in the midst of towns; and I have seen a rookery in a church-yard in one of the closest parts of London.

Fr. I think a rookery is a sort of town itself.

Mr. St. It is a village in the air, peopled with mumerous inhabitants; and nothing can be more amusing than to view them all in motion, flying to and fro, and busied in their several occupations. The spring is their busiest time. Early in the year they begin to repair their nests, or build new ones.

Fr. Do they all work together, or every one for itself?

Mr. St. Each pair, after they have coupled, builds its own nest; and, instead of helping, they are very apt to steal the materials from one another. If both birds go out at once in search of sticks, they often find, at their return, the work all destroyed, and the materials carried off; so that one of them generally stays at home to keep watch. However, I have met with a story which shows that they are not without some sense of the criminality of thieving. There was in a rookery a lazy pair of rooks, who never went out to get sticks for themselves, but made a practice of watching when their neighbours were abroad, and helped themselves from their nests. They had served most of the community in this manner, and by these means had just finished their own nest; when all the other rooks in a rage fell upon them at once, pulled their nest in pieces, beat them soundly, and drove them from their society.

Fr. That was very right-I should have liked to have seen it. But why do they live together, if they do not help one another?

Mr. St. They probably receive pleasure from the company of their own kind, as men and various other creatures do. Then, though they do not assist one another in building, they are mutually serviceable in many ways. If a large bird of prey hovers about a rookery for the purpose of carrying off any of the young ones, they all unite to drive him away. When they are feeding in a flock, several are placed as sentinels upon the trees all round, who give the alarm if any danger approaches. They often go a long way from