394 DECEMBER. 



are heard daily from morn till eve. It amazes 

 us, as we walk abroad, to conceive where can 

 have concealed themselves the infinite variety 

 of creatures that sported through the air, earth, 

 and waters of summer. Birds, insects, reptiles, 

 whither are they all gone? The birds that 

 filled the air with their music, the rich black- 

 bird, the loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet, 

 lark, arid goldfinch, whither have they crept ? 

 The squirrel that played his antics on the forest 

 tree ; and all the showy and varied tribes of but- 

 terflies, moths, dragonflies, beetles, wasps, and 

 warrior-hornets, bees, and cockchafers, whither 

 have they fled? Some, no doubt, have lived 

 out their little term of being, and their bodies, 

 lately so splendid, active, and alive to a thousand 

 instincts, feelings, and propensities, are become 

 part and parcel of the dull and wintry soil ; 

 but the greater portion have shrunk into the 

 hollows of trees and rocks, and into the bosom 

 of their mother earth itself, where, with mil- 

 lions of seeds and roots, and buds, they live in 

 the great treasury of Nature, ready at the call 

 of a more auspicious season, to people the world 

 once more with beauty and delight. 



As in the inferior world of creatures, so is 

 it with man. The wealthy have vacated their 



