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And then she used to kneel with me,
And teach me how to pray,

And raise my little hands to heaven,
And tell me what to say.

Oh mother, mother! in my heart
Thy image still shall be,
And I will hope in heaven at last,
That I may meet with thee.-Anon.

THE MOVING PLANT.

THERE is a foreign species of Santfoin, called the moving plant, (Hedysarum gyrans,) which is very remarkable. It grows on the banks of the river Ganges, near Bengal, in the East Indies, and was first known in England in the year 1772, when it was produced from seeds brought from India. It is an annual plant, and grows to the height of three or four feet; the leaves are of a bright green colour, and the flowers generally of a pale red. Its leaves possess the power of moving spontaneously, without being touched; sometimes one of them will move suddenly, while the rest remain still; at other times they all move together, or separately, without any regularity; and even when detached from the plant, they still retain their power of motion. There are several other marks of a sort of feeling among plants of different tribes. The leaves of the trefoil always fold up when rain approaches. The sensitive plant, usually to be seen in hot-houses, is a native of Brazil, and belongs to a genus or family, several species of which have the singular property of moving their leaves or branches when touched; but they do not move of themselves, like the one we have described.

Conversations on Botany.

THE NUTMEG TREE AND FRUIT.

THE nutmeg tree is very beautiful, and grows abundantly in the East Indies. The leaves have a very fragrant smell, as well as the fruit, which is about the size of a nectarine, and consists of three coats-the first, a fleshy pulp; the

second, a coloured membrane, which is the spice called mace; and the third, a shell, containing within it the nutmeg, which is the seed of the plant. In India the nutmeg-fruit, preserved entire, is introduced with tea, but the pulp and mace only are eaten.

Conversations on Botany.

ARTIFICIAL MIGRATION OF BEES.

A

THE shepherds of the Alps, as we learn from Saussure, as soon as the snows are melted on the sides of the mountains, transfer their flocks from the valleys below to the fresh pasture revived by the summer sun, in the natural parterres and patches of meadow-land formed at the foot of crumbling rocks, and sheltered by them from mountain-storms; and so difficult sometimes is this transfer to be accomplished, that the sheep require to be slung by means of ropes from one cliff to another before they can be stationed on the little grass plot above. similar artiicial migration (if we may use the term) is effected in some countries by the proprietors of bee-hives, who remove them from one district to another, that they may find abundance of flowers, and by this means prolong the summer. Sometimes this transfer is performed by persons forming an ambulatory establishment, like that of a gipsy horde, and encamping wherever flowers are found plentiful. Bee caravans of this kind are reported to be not uncommon in some districts of Germany, and in parts of Italy and France the transportation of bees was practised from very early times. But a more singular practice in such transportations, was to set the bee-hives afloat on a canal or river;-in France, one beebarge was built of capacity enough for from sixty to one hundred hives, and by gently floating down the river, the bees had an opportunity of gathering honey from the flowers along the banks. In Lower Egypt, where the blowing of flowers is considerably later than in the upper districts, the practice of transporting bee-hives is much followed. The hives are collected from different villages along the banks, each being marked and numbered by the proprietors, to prevent future mistakes. They are

then arranged in pyramidal piles upon the boats prepared to receive them, which floating gradually down the river, and stopping at certain stages of their passage, remain there a longer or shorter time according to the produce afforded by the surrounding country. In this manner the bee-boats sail for three months: the bees having culled the honey of the orange-flowers in the Sɛid, and of the Arabian jessamine and other flowers in the more northern parts, are brought back to the places from which they had been carried. This procures for the Egyptians delicious honey and abundance of bees' wax. The proprietors in return pay the boatmen a recompense proportioned to the number of hives which have been thus carried about from one extremity of Egypt to the other. The celebrated traveller Niebuhr saw upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, a convoy of four thousand hives in their transit from Upper Egypt to the coast of the Delta.-Insect Miscellanies.

THE SONG OF THE BEES.

WE watch for the light of the morn to break
And colour the eastern sky,

With its blended hues of saffron and ake,
Then say to each other, "Awake! awake!
For our winter's honey is all to make,
And our bread for a long supply."

Then off we hie to the hill and the dell,

To the field, the meadow, and bower;
In the Columbine's horn we love to dwell,
To dip in the lily with snow-white bell,
To search the balm in its odorous cell,
The mint and the rosemary flower.
We seek the bloom of the eglantine,
Of the painted thistle and brier;

And follow the steps of the wandering vine,
Whether it trail on the earth supine,
Or round the aspiring tree-top twine,
And reach for a state still higher.

As each on the good of her sister's bent,
Is busy and cares for all,

We hope for an evening with heart's content,
For the winter of life without lament,

That summer is gone with its hours misspent,
And the harvest is past recall!-Miss Gould.

KNOWLEDGE ALWAYS USEFUL.

KNOWLEDGE is our best and richest possession. Every addition of useful knowledge is like adding something to a man's treasure. And it is highly important that whatever we learn or know, we should know correctly. Unless our knowledge be correct, we lose half its value and usefulness. The benefit of knowledge is strikingly exemplified in the following little narrative:

The plant samphire grows wild on the sea-shore, but is never covered by the water, and a knowledge of this was useful, in a way that might not have been expected, to some French sailors, who were shipwrecked not long ago near Beachyhead, in Sussex. The vessel to which these poor men belonged was driven on shore by a storm, in the month of November, 1821; the whole crew were washed overboard, and only four escaped from the sea by climbing to the top of a heap of rocks which had fallen from the cliff above. It was a very dark night, and they expected every moment to be swallowed up by the waves, when one of them found a plant growing among the rocks, which he knew to be samphire. As this convinced them that the tide did not rise so high, they knew that they were safe, and did not move from the place till daybreak, when they were seen by the people on the cliffs, who immediately came to their assistance.-Conversations on Botany.

THE FOOD OF ANTS.

THE labours and policy of the ants are, when closely examined, still more wonderful, perhaps, than those of the bees. Their nest is a city, consisting of dwellingplaces, halls, streets, and squares, into which the streets open. The food they principally like is the honey which comes from another insect found in their neighbourhood, and which they, generally speaking, bring home from day

to day as they want it. Late discoveries have shown that they do not eat grain, but live almost entirely on animal food and this honey. Some kinds of ants have the foresight to bring home the insect on whose honey they feed, and keep them in particular cells, where they guard them to prevent their escaping, and feed them with proper vegetable matter which they themselves do not eat. Nay, they obtain the eggs of those insects, and superintend their hatching, and then rear the young insect, until he becomes capable of supplying the desired honey. They sometimes remove them to the strongest parts of their nest, where there are cells apparently fortified for protecting them from invasion. În these cells the insects are kept to supply the wants of the whole ants which compose the population of the city. It is a most singular circumstance in the economy of nature, that the degree of cold at which the ant becomes torpid is also that at which this insect falls into the same state. It is considerably below the freezing point, so that they require food the greater part of the winter, and if the insects on which they depend for food were not kept alive during the cold in which the ants can move about, the latter would be without the means of subsistence.-Brougham.

THE EXILE.

THE exile on a foreign strand,
Where'er his footsteps roam,
Remembers that his fathers' land
Is still his cherish'd home.

Though brighter skies may shine above,
And round him flow'rs more fair,
His heart's best hopes and fondest love
Find no firm footing there.

Still to the spot which gave him birth

His warmest wishes turn;

And elsewhere own, through all the earth,

A stranger's brief sojourn.

O! thus should man's immortal soul

Its privilege revere;

And mindful of its heavenly goal,

Seem but an exile here.

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