judicious observer, "is one of the most useful agents in the economy of nature, for disseminating forest trees and other ruciferous and hard-seeded vegetables on which they feed. Their chief employment during the autumnal season is foraging to supply their winter stores. In performing this necessary duty they drop abundance of seed in their flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where they alight to deposit them in the post holes, etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet winter and spring. These birds alone are capable, in a few years' time, to replant all the cleared lands."

THE LITTLE WIDOWER.

[From the Same.]

ABOX fixed up in the window of the room where I slept was taken

possession of by a pair of wrens. Already the nest was built, and two eggs laid, when one day the window being open, as well as the room door, the female wren venturing too far into the room to reconnoitre, was sprung upon by grimalkin, who had planted herself there for the purpose, and before relief could be given was destroyed. Curious to see how the survivor would demean himself, I watched him carefully for several days. At first he sung with great vivacity for an hour or so, but becoming uneasy went off for half an hour; on his return he chanted again as before, went to the top of the house, stable, and weeping-willow. that she might hear him; but seeing no appearance of her, he returned once more, visited the nest, ventured cautiously into the window, gazed about with suspicious looks, his voice sinking to a low melancholy note as he stretched his little neck about in every direction. Returning to the box, he seemed for some minutes at a loss what to do, and soon after went off, as I thought, altogether, for I saw him no more that day. Towards the afternoon of the second day he again made his appearance accompanied with a new female, who seemed exceedingly timorous and shy; and who after great hesitation entered the box; at this moment the little widower or bridegroom seemed as if he would warble out his very life with ecstacy of joy. After remaining about half a minute in, they both flew off, but returned in a few minutes and instantly began to carry out the eggs, feathers, and some of the sticks, supplying the place of the two latter with materials of the same sort; and ultimately succeeded in raising a brood of seven young, all of which escaped in safety.

MY LANDLADY'S NOSE.

[The Poems, etc., etc. 1876.]

'ER the evils of life 'tis a folly to fret,-

O'

Despondence and grief never lessened them yet; Then a fig for the world,-let it come as it goes, I'll sing to the praise of my landlady's nose.

My landlady's nose is in noble condition,
For longitude, latitude, shape, and position;
"T is as round as a horn, and as red as a rose;
Success to the hulk of my landlady's nose!

To jewellers' shops let your ladies repair,
For trinkets and knick-knacks to give them an air,
Here living carbuncles, a score of them glows
On the big massy sides of my landlady's nose.

Old Patrick M'Dougherty, when on the fuddle,
Pulls out a cigar, and looks up to her noddle;
For Dougherty swears, when he swigs a good dose,
By Marjory's firebrand, my landlady's nose.

Ye wishy-wash buttermilk drinkers so cold,
Come here, and the virtues of brandy behold;
Here's red burning Etna; a mountain of snows
Would roll down in streams from my landlady's nose.

Each cavern profound of this snuff-loving snout
Is furnished within, sir, as well as without;
O'er the brown upper lip such a cordial flows--
O the cordial brown drops of my landlady's nose!

But, gods! when this trunk, with an uplifted arm,
She grasps in the dish-clout to blow an alarm,
Horns, trumpets, conches, are but screaming of crows,
To the loud thundering twang of my landlady's nose.

My landlady's nose unto me is a treasure,

A care-killing nostrum, a fountain of pleasure;

If I want for a laugh to discard all my woes,

I only look up to my landlady's nose.

William Irving.

BORN in New York, N. Y., 1766. DIED there, 1821.

THE DAYS OF GROGRAM GRANDAMES.

["From the Mill of Pindar Cockloft, Esq." Salmagundi. 1807.]

OW oft in musing mood my heart recalls,

HOW

From gray-beard Father Time's oblivious halls,

The modes and maxims of my early day,

Long in those dark recesses stowed away:
Drags once more to the cheerful realms of light
Those buckram fashions, long since lost in night,
And makes, like Endor's witch, once more to rise
My grogram grandames to my raptured eyes!

Shades of my fathers! in your pasteboard skirts,
Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts,
Your formal bag-wigs-wide-extended cuffs,
Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs!
Gods! how ye strut, at times, in all your state,
Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate!

I see ye move the solemn minuet o'er,

The modest foot scarce rising from the floor;
No thundering rigadoon with boisterous prance,
No pigeon-wing, disturb your contre-danse,
But, silent as the gentle Lethe's tide,
Adown the festive maze ye peaceful glide!

Still in my mental eye each name appears-
Each modest beauty of departed years;
Close by mamma I see her stately march,

Or sit, in all the majesty of starch;

When for the dance a stranger seeks her hand,
I see her doubting, hesitating, stand,-
Yield to his claim with most fastidious grace,
And sigh for her intended in his place!

Oh! golden days; when every gentle fair
On sacred Sabbath conned with pious care
Her Holy Bible, or her prayer-book o'er,
Or studied honest Bunyan's drowsy lore;
Travelled with him the Pilgrim's Progress through,
And stormed the famous town of Man-Soul too:
Beat Eye- and Ear-gate up with thundering jar,
And fought triumphant through the Holy War;
Or if, perchance, to lighter works inclined,
They sought with novels to relax the mind,
"Twas Grandison's politely formal page,
Or Clelia or Pamela were the rage.

No plays were then-theatrics were unknown;
A learned pig-a dancing monkey shown-

The feats of Punch—a cunning juggler's sleight,
Were sure to fill each bosom with delight.
An honest, simple, humdrum race we were,
Undazzled yet by fashion's wildering glare.

John Quincy Adams.

BORN in Braintree, Mass., 1767. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1848.

EXTRACTS FROM HIS DIARY.

[Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. Edited by Charles Francis Adams. 1874-77.]

WE

AMERICAN GENIUS.

E had a band of music playing during the dinner. Richard asked me whether there was much taste for music in America. I told him no; that American genius was very much addicted to painting, and we had produced in that art some of the greatest masters of the age; but that we had neither cultivated nor were attached much to music; that it had always appeared to me a singular phenomenon in the national character, and I could not account for it otherwise than by supposing it owing to some particular construction of our fibres, that we were created without a strong devotion to music. "Oh, do not say so!" said he; "you will be chargeable with high-treason against the character of your country for such a sentiment, especially if you were to deliver it to an Italian or French connoisseur and virtuoso." "I suppose so," said I; "but then I must rely for my pardon upon the other tribute which I have paid to my country's genius in the article of painting. As for the rest," I added, "I pretend not to trace the cause of the fact, but music is not an object of enthusiasm in America; and that Marseillaise hymn, that your band are now playing, reminds me of a forcible proof of the fact I have stated. The Americans fought seven years and more for their liberty. If ever a people had occasion to combine the sensations of harmony with the spirit of patriotism, they had it during that time. Yet there never was during the whole period a single song written, nor a single tune composed, which electrized every soul, and was resounded by every voice, like your patriotic songs.' "That is indeed," said he, "a very strong fact." I told him that if I could be permitted to cite myself as an instance, I am extremely fond of music, and by dint of great pains have learned to blow very badly the flute-but could never learn to perform upon the violin, because I never could acquire the art of putting

the instrument in tune-that I consoled myself with the idea of being an American, and therefore not susceptible of great musical powers; though I must do my countrymen the justice to say that few of them are so very dull as this; that I knew many who had a musical ear, and could tune an instrument with little or no instruction at all.

I know not whether the Representative Richard finally concluded that I was guilty of debasing the genius of my country; but the American character needs no speaking-trumpet of vanity to proclaim its praise. For us the voice of truth and of justice is enough, and on that ground we shall never dread the test of comparison with any nation upon earth.

THE CHARACTER OF HIS MOTHER.

Had she lived to the age of the Patriarchs, every day of her life would have been filled with clouds of goodness and of love. There is not a virtue that can abide in the female heart but it was the ornament of hers. She had been fifty-four years the delight of my father's heart, the sweetener of all his toils, the comforter of all his sorrows, the sharer and heightener of all his joys. It was but the last time when I saw my father that he told me, with an ejaculation of gratitude to the Giver of every good and every perfect gift, that in all the vicissitudes of his fortunes, through all the good report and evil report of the world, in all his struggles and in all his sorrows, the affectionate participation and cheering encouragement of his wife had been his never-failing support, without which he was sure he should never have lived through them.

Never have I known another human being the perpetual object of whose life was so unremittingly to do good. It was a necessity of her nature. Yet so unostentatious, so unconscious even, of her own excellence, that even the objects of her kindness often knew not whence it came. She had seen the world-its glories, without being dazzled: its vices and follies, without being infected by them. She had suffered often and severely from fits of long and painful sickness, always with calmness and resignation. She had a profound, but not an obtrusive, sensibility. She was always cheerful, never frivolous; she had neither gall nor guile. Her attention to the domestic economy of her family was unrivalled—rising with the dawn, and superintending the household concerns with indefatigable and all-foreseeing care. She had a warm and lively relish for literature, for social conversation, for whatever was interesting in the occurrences of the time, and even in political affairs. She had been, during the war of our Revolution, an ardent patriot, and the earliest lesson of unbounded devotion to the cause of their country that her children received was from her. She had the most delicate