16 
on a bird or rabbit the prey will become so fas- 
cinated as to be helpless for escape, but awaits 
the monster’s approach, and even walks into its 
jaws. 
same in both cases; for in the hunter this want 
of power to execute his will does not arise from | 
fear, but is probably merely an intense anxiety 
not to miss the mark—a violent struggle between 
suddenly-aroused emotions. In time the “ fever” 
wears off; yet occasionally, though you flatter 
yourself you are grown stoically calm, and that 
an old sportsman like you is not to be disturbed 
by such freaks and fancies—occasionally, I say, 
if you are kept long in suspense, you too will 
get the “‘ fever”—you will feel it laying hold of 
you in spite of all your efforts to shake it off. 
I do not remember any allusion to this ertreme 
state by English sportsmen. ‘They acknowledge 
being “nervous; ” nothing however transpires of 
chattering of teeth, of gasping for breath, or of 
violent tremblings throughout the whole body ; 
yet Ido not doubt that the presence of the red- 
deer of Scotland may have the same potent 
charm as that of his German compeer ; and I am 
quite sure, if it ever were my good fortune to get 
a day’s stalking in the Highlands, that such a 
sight as Sir Edwin Landseer has shown us in his 
“Drive,” would set my heart beating exactly 
as of old. 
When young, we were in the habit of beat- 
ing a very extensive wood—gun in hand, 
for the purpose of trying our skill at a 
partridge or a pheasant. There was an 
abundance of game in the preserves; and 
we recollect, even as if it were yesterday, 
the effect produced on our nerves when we 
flushed a covey of birds for the first time. 
It was a fine season, and the coveys were 
large. We remember some thirteen birds 
rising on the wing, with a rustling noise 
like thunder. We remember, too, opening 
our mouth wide, and gazing at them, as with 
their musical and thrilling “whirr! ” they 
went a-head—-bidding us defiance. How we 
did tremble in every limb! 
The gun was raised, truly; and our 
heart might have been heard (almost) to beat 
beneath our vest; but no power had we to 
pull the trigger. We were riveted—para- 
lysed. Excitement like this must be felt ere 
it can be comprehended; and no person 
better than ourself can understand the 
meaning sought to be conveyed by the gra- 
phic description givenin the above extract. 
What a very curious thing is excitement ! 
And yet how necessary is its existence in 
a modified form, to enable us to enjoy 
rightly the world we live in! 

RELIGION. 
Tue end of all religion is, that we should “live 
soberly, righteously, and godly;” that in our- 
selves we should be temperate and pure; to our 
fellow-creatures, just and benevolent; to God, 
obedient, thankful, and devout.—HuntinerorpD. 

The influence, it is true, isnot quite the | 




KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
EVERY THING HAS ITS USE. 

Tue Creator has made nothing that is not use- 
ful—nothing so insulated as to have no felations 
with anything else—nothing which is not service- 
able or instrumental to other purposes besides 
its own existence—nothing that is not to be ap- 
plicable or convertible to the benefit of His sen- 
tient creatures, in some respect or other. The 
mineral has a connexion of this sort with both 
the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and these 
with each other, 
The same principle has been pursued through- 
out the animated classes of nature. No one 
species of living being has been formed only for 
itself, or can subsist in absolute uselessness to 
others. ‘This is one grand purpose for causing so 
many races of animal beings to subsist on each 
other. By this system, each enjoys the gift of 
life ; and each is made to contribute, by the ter- 
mination of that gift, to the well-being of others. 
Fishes are thus useful to each other, to many 
birds, to some animals, and to man. Birds have 
their period of happiness for themselves, and are 
serviceable to others of their kind ; and to man, 
and to some quadrupeds, in their mode of death, 
instead of mouldering through corruption into 
their material dissolution. Quadrupeds have 
the same double use in their existence : their own 
enjoyment, and the benefit, at their death, to 
those of their own order, and to the birds and 
reptiles, worms and insects, that have been ap- 
pointed to derive nutrition from their substance. 
All the kingdoms of nature have been likewise 
so constructed as to be beneficial to the human 
race—not as nutriment only, but in the thousand 
conveniences to which they are convertible. The 
amphibious order of nature is no exception to 
these general results. Its various genera con- 
tribute their proportion to the common stock of 
mutual utilities. They have their own gratifi- 
cation from their personal existence ; they contri- 
bute by their substance to the maintenance of 
others of their fellow-creatures ; and some of their 
genera serve to multiply the conveniences and 
pleasures of man. He derives advantages from 
all that exists, in as much larger a degree to any 
other animal as he is superior to any in his in- 
tellectual exertions and universal capacity. 

FALLACIES. 
So little do we accustom ourselves to consider 
the effects of time, that things necessary and cer- 
tain often surprise us like unexpected contingen- 
cies. We leave the beauty in her bloom ; and 
after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our 
return, to find her faded. We meet those whom 
we left children, and can scarcely persuade our- 
selves to treat them as men. The traveller visits 
in age those countries through which he rambled 
in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old 
place. The man of business, wearied with un- 
satisfactory prosperity, retires to the town of his 
nativity, and expects to play away the last years 
with the companions of his childhood, and recover 
youth in the fields where he once was young.— 
JOHNSON. 


