THE FARMER AT HOME. 277 



show ; while the concave ones, by collecting the rays into a focus, not 

 only magnify the objects they show, but will burn very fiercely when 

 exposed to the rays of the sun ; and hence they are commonly known 

 by the name of burning mirrors. In ancient times mirrors were made 

 of some kind of metal ; and from a passage in the Mosaic writings 

 we learn that the mirrors used by the Jewish women were made of 

 brass. The Jews certainly had been taught to use that kind of 

 mirrors by the Egyptians ; whence it is probable that brazen mirrors 

 were the first kind used in the world. Any metal, indeed, when well 

 polished, will reflect very powerfully, but silver reflects the most, 

 though it is too expensive a material for common use. Gold also is 

 very powerful ; and metals, or even wood gilded and polished, will 

 act very powerfully as burning mirrors. Even polished ivory, or 

 straw nicely plaited together, will form mirrors capable of burning, if 

 large. Since the invention of glass, and the application of quicksilver 

 to it, became generally known, it has been universally employed for 

 those plain mirrors used as ornaments to houses ; %ut in making 

 reflecting telescopes they have been much inferior to metallic ones. 



MISLETOE. A plant which always grows on trees, and was 

 thought, therefore, to be an excrescence of the tree ; but it has been 

 found to be propagated by the seed or berry which is conveyed by the 

 misletoe thrush from one tree to another ; this bird being fond of these 

 seeds, it sometimes happens that the viscous part of the berry sticks 

 to his beak, and, in his attempts to disengage himself from it by strik- 

 ing his beak against the bark of the tree, the berry sticks to the 

 latter ; and if it happen to light on a smooth part, it will take root, 

 and sprout out the next winter. This plant adheres most readily to 

 the ash and other smooth rinded trees, as the apple. 



MOCKING BIRD. The mocking bird, like the nightingale, is 

 destitute of brilliant plumage, but his form is beautiful, delicate and 

 symmetrical in its proportions. His motions are easy, rapid and 

 graceful, perpetually animated with a playful caprice, and a look that 

 appears full of shrewdness and intelligence. He listens with silent 

 attention to each passing sound, treasures up lessons from any thing 

 vocal, and is capable of imitating with exactness, both in measure 

 and accent, the notes of all the feathered creation. As if conscious 

 of his unrivalled powers of sor g ; and animated by the harmony of 

 his own voice, his music is as it were, accompanied by chromatic 

 dancing and expressive gestures ; he spreads and closes his light and 

 fanning wings, expands his silvered tail, and with buoyant gaity, and 

 enthusiastic ecstasy, he sweeps around, and mounts and descends into 

 the air from his lofty spray, as his song swells to loudness, or dies 

 away in sinking whispers. While thus engaged, so various is his 

 talent, that it might be supposed a tria. of skill from all the assembled 

 birds of the country ; and so perfect his imitations, that even the 



