very fragrant and originally derived from 

 the Mandarin, and the Maltese or Blood 

 Orange, commonly grown in southern 

 Italy and notable for its deep red pulp. 

 There are many other varieties that bear 

 geographical or local names. 



Few forms of plant life present to the 

 beholder more beautiful characteristics 

 than an Orange tree in full bearing. Such 



a tree, in addition to the unripe and ripe 

 yellow fruit has also numerous white 

 flowers, which give off their wonderful 

 perfume, and its symmetrically arranged 

 branches are covered with rich dark 

 green leaves. It is a tree that appeals 

 not alone to the sense of taste but to the 

 esthetic nature as well. 



THE MUSICAL SWAN. 



(Cygnus mustcus.) 



"What moonlit glades, what seas, 

 Foam-edged, have I not known! 

 Through ages hath not flown 

 Mine ancient song with gathered music sweet 

 By fanes overthrown, 



By cities known of old, and classic woods, 

 And, strangely sad, in deep-leaved northern solitudes?" 







If those living Avian gems aglow probable that the popular and poetical no- 

 amid the trees that form Earth's emerald tion of the singing of the swan was de- 

 diadem, are the jewels of Nature's crown, rived from the doctrine of the transmi- 

 then is the great white swan afloat upon gration of souls; yet the traveler Paus- 

 the ripples of her glistening lakes and anius, who spake as one having author- 

 seas, a shimmering pearl amid the chas- ity, affirmed the swan to be "the glory 

 ing of her silver breastplate. of music," at the same time preserving 



Yet it was not the beautiful Mute the following testimony to the repute of 

 Swan, most beautiful, most stately, and the swan as a bird of prophecy : "In the 

 most silent of all created beings, that night before Plato was to become the 

 typified to the men of old the reincarna- pupil of Sokrates, the latter in a dream 

 tion of the poet's soul ; neither the saw a swan take refuge in his bosom. 

 Trumpeter, with its loud clarion, but the Now the swan has a reputation for music, 

 more slender Singing Swan of song and because a man who loved music very 

 story, that "thro' its deathless music sent much, Kuknos, the king of the Ligyes 

 a dying moan." It was to this swan beyond the Eridanus, is said to have ruled 

 alone that the ancients could attribute the the land of the Kelts. People relate con- 

 power of melody the singular faculty of cerning him that, through the will of 

 tuning its dying dirge from among the Apollo, he was changed after his death 

 reedy marshes of its final retreat, where into a swan." From this evidence Paus- 

 "in a low, plaintive and stridulous voice, anius thus subtracts the weight of his 

 in the moment of death, it murmured private opinion : "I am willing to believe 

 forth its last prophetic sigh ;" and it was that a man who. loved music may have 

 this swan, too, that inspired the philoso- ruled over the Ligyes, but that a human 

 pher Pythagoras to teach that the souls being was turned into a bird is a thing 

 of poets passed at death into swans and impossible for me to believe." 

 retained the powers of harmony they had Mr. Rennie cites, also : "In his Phae- 

 possessed in their human forms. dro, Plato makes Socrates thus expresses 



M. Antoine thinks that it is not im- hfhiself: 'When swans perceive ap- 



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