NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 3 



and the sense of hunger is relieved. So when they snatch 

 the earth-worm stirring unusually the grass blades of the 

 sward beneath them -from its slimy hole, the bare appetite 

 is soothed. 



Theirs is no sodden gormandie, such as we human brutes 

 indulge, that would doze and snooze away the precious 

 hours. ISTo ; this food with them is but the " provender of 

 praise ;" and for every mite and fragment of the manna of 

 the " great Dispenser" they do obeisance in thanksgiving. 



Beautiful lesson, is it not, to us a stiff-necked and ungrate- 

 ful generation? We eat to live, that we may eat again. 

 They eat that they may make merry before the Lord, and 

 fill his outer temple with the sounds of love ! 



One of the most touching and what certainly should be 

 one of the most significant objects known to us, is afforded in 

 the habitual gesture of these little creatures while they drink. 



Think of a thin rivulet by the meadow-side playing at bo- 

 peep with the sun beneath the thickets and so clear withal, 

 that every stem, jagged limb, or crooked, leaf-weighed 

 bough, lies boldly shadowed on its pale sand, or over its 

 white pebbles, like moon-shades on the snow except that 

 these are tremulous. 



Then think of the singing throng who have been anticking 

 and carrolling all the morning upon the weed and clover- 

 tops, out under the sun coming into that shady place about 

 "the sweltering time o' day," to cool their pipes. 



How eagerly they come flitting in, with panting, open 

 throats ! How quietly, through those cool, chequered glooms, 

 thev drop beside that sliding crystal. 



Here a scarlet Grosbeak flames partly in the sunlight, 

 while his ebony -set eyes gleam sharper in the shade ; the Jay 

 sits yonder behind a plumb-tree shadow, with lowered crest 

 and gaping bill the Meadow Lark wades in and stoops until 

 the wavelets curl up against its yellow breast and kiss the dark 

 blotch on its throat ; the Wren comes creeping down with 

 wagging tail among the mossy roots ; the Orchard Oriole, 



