KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



255 



to be, that of providing sufficient ponds for such 

 a multitude of fishes when they are able to swim, 

 as the feeding ponds already provided will not 

 contain a tenth of them ; and such is the number, 

 there appears no other way, after having hatched 

 and protected them for 20 weeks, but that of com- 

 mitting them to the river to take their chance. 

 At Galway, about 260,000 ova are in a similarly 

 prosperous condition. Propagation on a smaller 

 scale has also been carried in effect on the Rivers 

 Tweed, Loughard, the Foyle, the Bush, the 

 Blackwater, the Moy, the Dee, near Chester, and 

 other places. By the use of spring water, which 

 is several degrees warmer in the winter season 

 than river water, the spawn has been entirely 

 protected from injury by frost during the past 

 severe winter ; and of 2,500 eggs which were sent 

 from Galway to Basle, a distance of nearly 1,000 

 miles, M. Lex states that a considerable portion 

 are good, and in a state likely to live. — R. T. 



Early Rising. — Anything, my dear Sir, that can 

 assist in rousing people from their beds, whilst 

 "the dew is. on the grass," will I know find favor 

 with you. Let us then listen to the voice of the 

 thrush, now so sweetly eloquent : — 



A throstle sung to his lady love, — 



"The morning sun is rising : 

 Arise, for flowers around us, love, 



The dewdrops are baptising. 



The rosy blush of summer's morn 



In gentle softness stealing, 

 Just shows me now the old hawthorn 



Thy fairy form concealing. 



Get up ! get up ! the flowers so fair 



So fragrantly are flinging, 

 Their incense on the morning air, 



Beneath where I am singing. 



Oh ! come, my love, make haste, I pray, 

 Ere this fair scene has faded; 



This lovely morn may bring a day 

 Dark, dreary, and o'ershaded. 



Then, dearest, give this hour to love : 



The gentle god is stealing 

 From every woodland, tree, and grove, 



Some tale of tender feeling. 



My heart beats high in rhapsody — 



I hear thee now replying — 

 Thy voice is making melody, 

 And mine is lost in sighing." — J. E. T. 



Magnitude of the Planet " Saturn." — Of all 

 the planets, either of this or the terrestrial group, 

 that which presents to the astronomical observer 

 the most astonishing spectacle is Saturn — a 

 stupendous globe — nearly 900 times greater in 

 volume than the earth, surrounded by two, at 

 least, and probably by several, thin flat rings of 

 solid matter, outside which revolve a group of 

 eight moons ; this entire system moving with a 

 common motion, so exactly maintained that no one 

 part falls upon, overtakes, or is overtaken by 

 another in their course around the sun. Such is 

 the Saturnian system, the centre body of which 

 was known as a planet to the ancients, the annular 



appendages and satellites being the discovery of 

 modern times. The distance of Saturn from the 

 sun is so enormous, Dr. Lardner tells us, that if 

 the whole earth's orbit, measuring nearly 

 200,000,000 of miles in diameter, were filled with 

 a sun, that sun, seen from Saturn, would be only 

 about 2-1 times greater in its apparent diameter 

 than is the actual sun seen from the earth. A 

 cannon ball, moving at 500 miles an hour, would 

 take 91,000 years ; and a railway train, moving 

 50 miles an hour, would take 910,000 years to move 

 from Saturn to the sun. Light, which moves at 

 the rate of nearly 200,000 miles per second, takes 

 five days eighteen hours and two minutes to move 

 over the same distance. Yet to this distance, solar 

 gravitation transmits its mandates ; and is obeyed 

 with the utmost promptitude and the most 

 unerring precision. Taking the diameter of 

 Saturn's orbit at 1,800,000,000 of miles, its circum- 

 ference is 5,650,000,000 of miles, over which it 

 moves in 10,759 days. Its daily motion is 

 therefore 525,140 miles, and its hourly motion is 

 21,880 miles. All this seems beyond human 

 comprehension ! — Puss. 



Climbing Plants of South America. — The 

 climbers of the South American forests are par- 

 ticularly remarkable ; as much for the beauty of 

 their foliage as for their flowers. Often two or 

 three climb over one tree or shrub, mingling in 

 the most perplexing though elegant confusion, so 

 that it is a matter of much difficulty to decide to 

 which plant the different blossoms belong ; and 

 should they be high up, it is impossible- A deli- 

 cate white and a fine yellow convolvulus were 

 now plentiful. The purple and yellow trumpet 

 flowers were still amongst the most showy ; and 

 some noble thick-leaved climbers mounted to the 

 tops of trees, and sent aloft bright spikes of scarlet 

 flowers. Among the plants not in flower, the 

 twin-leaved bauhinias of various forms were most 

 frequently noticed. The species are very nume- 

 rous. Some are shrubs, others delicate climbers ; 

 and one is the most extraordinary among the ex- 

 traordinary climbers of the forest, its broad flat- 

 tened woody stems being twisted in and out in a 

 most singular manner, mounting to the summits 

 of the very loftiest trees, and hanging from their 

 branches in gigantic festoons, many hundred f«et 

 in length. A handsome pink and white clusia 

 was now abundant, with large shining leaves, and 

 flowers having a powerful and very fragrant odor. 

 It grows not only as a good-sized tree out of the 

 ground, but is also parasitical on almost every 

 other forest-tree. Its large, round, whitish fruits 

 are called cebola braha (wild onion), by the natives, 

 and arc much eaten by birds, which thus pro- 

 bably convey the seed into the forks of lofty 

 trees, where it seems most readily to take root in 

 any little decaying vegetable matter, refuse of 

 birds, &c, that may be there ; and when it arrives 

 at such a size as to require more nourishment 

 than it can there obtain, it sends down long shoots 

 to the ground, which take fresh root, and grow 

 into a new stem. At Nazarn there is a tree by 

 the road-side, out of the fork of which grows a 

 large mucuja .palm, and on the palm are three or 

 four young clusia trees, which no doubt have or 

 will have orchideae and ferns again growing upon 

 them. A few forest-trees were also in blossom; 



