NATURAL HISTORY CALENDAR NOTICES.

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altogether; and, having secured himself a place as one
of the first mechanical and astronomical philosophers
of the day, he died in the year 1776, at the age of
sixty-six.

Such is the story, told very briefly, of James Ferguson,
Fellow of the Royal Society.

He was the son, as has been said, of a mere day-
labourer. He was never even taught to read, but learned
it himself, from hearing his elder brothers taught by his
father. His attention was first drawn to mechanical
philosophy by seeing his father use a lever to raise a
portion of the cottage roof, which was falling in. Though
he was then but a child of seven or eight years old, he
set his little wits to work, and not only wrought out for
himself the principle of the lever, but extended it to the
wheel and axle. He wrote out his results, with drawings,
so entirely out of his own head, that he actually thought
them to be new discoveries, and was much astonished
when a printed book was shown him afterwards contain-
ing them all, and many more besides. What he would
have turned out, if he had had a regular scientific educa-
tion, we, of course, cannot tell, but, be that as.it may, we
have in James Ferguson a most remarkable instance of
brain-work triumphing over the greatest difficulties. It
is, indeed, to but few that such powers as his are given,
very few are they who can hope to reach to such an
eminence as he did, but we can, at any rate, learn from
his story to use what brains we have, and if we possess
but few ourselves, to honour and respect those who are
well provided with them, and make a good use of them,
and not to despise work, even though it may be in a
sphere beyond our ken.

———_~————

Byenrnes At Home.—No one would recognize the bustling,
absorbed speculator of Mincing Lane in the genial country
squire who saunters chatting through the greenhouse or strolls
off to takea look athis fowls. The man, in a word, is at home.

The light and warmth of his own fireside, the voices of his |

children, blend themselves with the freshness of these country
lanes, the last glory of the sunset as it streams through the
coppice, or the songs of birds. The girls come running to him
with a kiss of welcome at the gate; a face yet dearer waits
quietly for him in the garden ; laughter is ringing out from
the croquet group on the lawn; “ baby ” crows to him from
his nurse’sarms. His very change of costume marks the new
ease and comfort which he gains from the sense of being at
home. The old felt hat, the old loose coat, the big stick with
which he goes off to his chat with the gardener, are an odd
contrast to the precision of his dress throughout the day. He
idles, and he idles deliberately. His chat is all about a num-
ber of little home trifles—the new rose, or the last social
squabble in the village, or the triumphant result of “baby’s ”
effort at walking. He has a brisk fight with his eldest daugh-
ter for the last volume of the last novel from Mudie’s. He
wants to hear all about Harry’s cricketing score, and tells him
of his own famous innings some thirty years ago. He pokes
the fire, and hums an irregular accompaniment to the duet,
which is going on at the piano. He implores the governess
to help him to a game of backgammon. Nobody would ima-
gine that the lazy old felloy whom every body is quizzing is
the terrible cross-examiner before whom witnesses shake in
their shoes, or that the imbecile father whose youngster is cor-
recting him for his numberless errors in saying “ Diggory
Dock” is the profoundest financier among the bank directors.
But then financier and barrister are at home.—Saturday

Review.

AD TE DOMINE.
Tuovu who didst die
To set death’s captives free,
And didst resume
Thy bated breath, rising from Thine own tomb,
To Thee we cry.

Now is night’s reign ;—
We would lie down in peace and take our rest.
We sleep, Thou wakest,—though we die, Thou
livest,

And not in vain.
The dim sleep lays
His finger on hot temples and tired eyes,—
O let us rest ! to-morrow we will rise

Unto Thy praise.

AxicE Horron.

NATURAL HISTORY CALENDAR
NOTICES.

By tur Rey. J. C. ATKINSON.
APRIL.

SA)HIS is a month of great activity among living
#| creatures. The swallows and martins, the
cuckoo and a host of soft-billed birds, are
now thronging in upon our hedges and fields
and villages. But why? How is it that
the 15th to the 20th of Apvil is a period that witnesses
the arrival of so many of the summer denizens of our
thickets, and hedgerows, of our sandy banks, house-eaves,
chimneys, and sheds? Why should so many ears be
listening, just then, for the first welcome cry of the bird
of spring, so many eyes on the watch for the speeding
flight of the first swallow or swift? It is simply that
now a great change has come over nature in respect of
the supply of animated being, or that, as I phrased it
above, it is now a season of great activity among living
creatures. Insect life is beginning literally to teem, and
the creatures which feed upon insects can find abundant
and unfailing subsistence. The fly-catcher or the swallow
would be hardly bested, however warm and summer-like
that pleasant week we often get in March (if not in late
February), if they could be suddenly transported from
their winter habitat and set to watch or hawk for insect
food in their ordinary wise; the bright sun, the soft air,
the genial temperature might be there, but not the
floating insects that furnish the swallow’s supplies, or
the circling, creeping, leaping flies and gnats that support
the soft-billed birds.

The food of the cuckoo, again, which consists mainly
of caterpillars—hairy caterpillars by preference—tiies,
beetles, grasshoppers, small slugs, where would it come |
from before the period about which the bird in question |
makes its appearance? Most of the creatures named |
depend solely on vegetable growth for their subsistence, |
and vegetable growth is but scarce until the spring has |
fairly set in. And thus it always is in the divinely con- |
stituted sequence and harmony of nature. There is a
wondrous truth in the old adage, “God never makes |

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