KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



59 



themselves. Have you read our " Treatise on 

 the Canary?" If not, we advise you to do so. 

 You will therein see how important it is not to 

 interfere unduly with birds of peculiar habits. 

 Much depends upon where your birds are kept, 

 where suspended, how fed, how treated.] 



Diseases of Poultry. — I see with much plea- 

 sure, Mr. Editor, that you are from time to 

 time giving us practical instructions in the 

 management of poultry. I hope you will keep 

 on at this, for your long experience will furnish 

 us with many a useful hint. I have a Dorking 

 hen which is ailing. When going to feed the 

 poultry this morning, I found her lying on the 

 ground, knocking her head about, and unable to 

 stand. I administered a dose of salts, and some 

 cayenne pepper mixed with butter. This did 

 her some little good ; but she still staggers about, 

 and has all the appearance of having been struck 

 on the neck. — C. P., Boston. 



[Your fowl has had an attack of apoplexy. 

 Give her a cooling diet, and let her have access 

 to long grass, and plenty of old mortar. Provide 

 her also with an abundance of fresh water, in 

 which place a bunch of rue. By all means let 

 her ramble abroad, if you can safely do so with- 

 out injury to your garden, &c. She will recover.] 



Description of a Nightingale's Nest. — Will you 

 tell me, dear Mr. Editor, of what a nightingale's 

 nest is composed, how many eggs she lays, and 

 what is the kind of spot she usually selects for 

 her dwelling during incubation? You are now 

 writing every week so charmingly about this 

 most lovely of all lovely birds, that the ad- 

 ditional information I seek will be truly welcome. 

 We have had nightingales singing in our garden 

 as late as the third week in June; and oh, how 

 sorry I was when their melody ceased! — Maria 

 L., Kilburn, 



[As our articles on the nightingale are of ne- 

 cessity in prose — though, let us hope, not pros-y 

 — we will gratify your wish, dear Mademoiselle, 

 with reference to the nightingale's nest, in 

 poetry. Our own favorite Clare shall be the 



singer:— 



" These harebells all 



Seem bowing with the beautiful in song: 

 And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves, 

 Seems blushing of the singing it has heard. 

 How curious is the nest ! no other bird 

 "Uses such loose materials, or weaves 

 Its dwelling in such spots: dead oaken leaves 

 Are placed without, and velvet moss within, 

 And little scraps of grass, and scant, and spare, 

 What scarcely seem materials, down and hair ; 

 For from men's haunts she nothing seems to win. 

 Yet nature is the builder, and contrives 

 Homes for her children's comfort even here ; 

 Where solitude's disciples spend their lives 

 Unseen, save when a wanderer passes near 

 That loves such pleasant places. Deep adown, 

 The nest is made a hermit's mossy cell. 

 Snug lie her curious eggs, in number— five, 

 Of deadened green, or rather olive-brown; 

 And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well. 

 So here we'll leave them, still unknown to wrong, 

 As the old woodman's legacy of song." 



If, gentle Maria, you have any other questions 

 to put to us, never be afraid to do so. Write as 

 often as you please ; the oftener the more wel- 

 come. Your handwriting makes us anxious to 

 cultivate your further acquaintance. We judge 



people (and seldom err in our judgment) by the 

 character of their style and handwriting. Afford 

 us, s'il vous plait, a further opportunity at an 

 early day.] 



Flowers. — I am so anxious, my dear Mr. 

 Editor, to send something for insertion in your 

 delightful Paper, that I have just been copying, 

 from my private album, the following. I know 

 you love flowers, and I am sure all your readers 

 must love them, too; for the Editor and Readers 

 of Kidd's Journal must be essentially " one." 

 If you insert this, my first token of esteem, I 

 shall I fear soon be found offending a second 

 time. — u Flowers. — Flowers of all created things 

 most innocently simple, and most superbly com- 

 plex: — playthings for childhood, ornaments of 

 the grave, and companions of the cold corpse in 

 the coffin! Flowers, beloved by the wandering 

 idiot, and studied by the deep-thinking man of 

 science ! Flowers, that of perishing things are 

 most perishing, yet of all earthly things are the 

 most heavenly. Flowers — that unceasingly ex- 

 pand to heaven their grateful, and to man their 

 cheerful looks, partners of human joy, soothers 

 of human sorrow; fit emblems of the victor's 

 triumphs, of the young bride's blushes; welcome 

 to crowded halls, and graceful upon solitary 

 graves! . . . Flowers are in the volume of 

 nature, what the expression * God is love,' is 

 in the volume of revelation . . . What a dreary 

 desolate place would be the world without a 

 flower! It would be a face without a smile — 

 a feast without a welcome . . . Are not 

 flowers the stars of the earth, and are not stars 

 the flowers of heaven? One cannot look closely 

 at the structure of a flower without loving it. 

 They are emblems and manifestations of God's 

 love to the creation, and they are the means and 

 ministrations of man's love to his fellow- crea- 

 tures ; for they first awaken in his mind a sense 

 of the beautiful and the good . . . The very 

 inutility of flowers is their excellence and great 

 beauty ; for they lead us to thoughts of gene- 

 rosity and moral beauty, detached from and 

 superior to all selfishness; so that they are 

 pretty lessons in nature's book of instruction, 

 teaching man that he liveth not by bread or from 

 bread alone, but that he hath another than an 

 animal life."— Are not the above sentiments 

 beautiful ? I do not, cannot wonder at flowers 

 being such universal favorites ! — Clara. 



[If we progress, Miss Clara, at this rate, and 

 get so many lovely champions to aid us in our 

 weekly task, we fear we shall grow " beside our- 

 selves." We do not however say, as the French 

 do, that we are " too happy," — but we pray that 

 our happiness may never be diminished, and that 

 " the shadows" of our fair and loving Corre- 

 spondents may " never grow less!"] 



Flint in Vegetables. — It is curious, Mr. Editor, 

 and hitherto inexplicable, that flint, which is one 

 of the most intractable of all substances with 

 which the chemist has to deal, makes its way 

 by some means or another into the tenderest 

 plants, and it becomes visible and tangible upon 

 the surface of some plants. Two pieces of com- 

 mon cane, when struck together, will produce 

 flashes of fire like two flints. The reason is, 



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