passage, makes its appearance about the middle of the month. When pinched by

hunger, it will eat the young tops of turnips, but beech mast is its favourite food, and before the old beech woods in the southern parts of the island were so much thinned, the multitudes of stock-doves that annually resorted thither, probably from Sweden and the north of Germany, were almost incredible. They might be seen, like rooks, in long strings of a thousand or more, directing their evening flight to the thick woods, where they were shot in great numbers by the fowlers who awaited their arrival.

Salmon begin now to ascend the rivers in order to spawn; they are extremely active fish, and will force their way almost to the source of the most rapid streams, overcoming with surprising agility cataracts and other obstacles to their passage. There are several salmon leaps, as they are called, in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; at which numbers of fish are taken by nets or baskets placed under the fall, into which they are carried after an unsuccessful leap.

The farmer endeavours to finish all his ploughing in the course of this month, and then lays up his instruments till the next spring.

Cattle and horses are taken out of the exhausted pastures, and kept in the yard or stable. Hogs are put up to fatten. Sheep are turned into the turnip-field, or in stormy weather fed with hay at the rick.

Bees require to be moved under shelter, and the pigeons in the dove-house to be fed.

159

DECEMBER.

O Winter! ruler of th' inverted year,
Thy scatter'd hair with sleet like ashes fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring'd with a beard made white with other snowa
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp'd in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,

But urg'd by storms along its slipp'ry way;
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,

And dreaded as thou art.

COWPER'S TASK.

THIS month is, in general, the most unpleasant of any in the whole year: the day is rapidly decreasing, and the frost being seldom fully confirmed till quite the latter end of the year, or the commencement of the next, vapours, and clouds, and storms, form the only vicissitudes of weather, thus fully justifying the expression in Shakespeare,

The rain and wind beat dark December.

Every change seems only an advance towards the stagnation and death of nature, towards universal gloom and desolation.

No mark of vegetable life is seen,

No bird to bird repears his tuneful call, Save the dark leaves of some rude evergreen, Save the lone redbreast on the moss-grown wall.

SCOTT.

Several of the wild quadrupeds and amphibious animals now retire to their winter quarters, which they never, or but seldom, quit till the return of spring. Of these, some lay up no stores of provision, and therefore become entirely torpid till the warm weather brings out them and their food at the same time. To this class belong the frog, the lizard, the badger, hedgehog, and bat, all of which feed on insects or vegetables. The frog shelters itself in the mud at the bottom of ponds and ditches; the lizard, badger, and hedge-hog, retire to holes in the earth; and the bat makes choice of caverns, barns, deserted houses, and coal-pit shafts, where it remains suspended by the claws of its hind feet, and closely wrapt up in its wings or the membranes of the fore-feet. Bats, however,