very fragrant and originally derived from 

 the Mandarin, and the Maltese or Blood 

 Orange, commonly grown in southern 

 Italy and notable for its deep red pulp. 

 There are many other varieties that bear 

 geographical or local names. 



Few forms of plant life present to the 

 beholder more beautiful characteristics 

 than an Orange tree in full bearing. Such 



a tree, in addition to the unripe and ripe 

 yellow fruit has also numerous white 

 flowers, which give off their wonderful 

 perfume, and its symmetrically arranged 

 branches are covered with rich dark 

 green leaves. It is a tree that appeals 

 not alone to the sense of taste but to the 

 esthetic nature as well. 



THE MUSICAL SWAN. 



{Cygnus musicus.) 



"What moonlit glades, what seas, 

 Foam-edged, have I not known! 

 Through ages hath not flown 

 Mine ancient song with gathered music sweet— 

 By fanes o'erthrown, 



By cities known of old, and classic woods, 



And, strangely sad, in deep-leaved northern solitudes?" 



If those living Avian gems aglow 

 amid the trees that form Earth's emerald 

 diadem, are the jewels of Nature's crown, 

 then is the great white swan afloat upon 

 the ripples of her glistening lakes and 

 seas, a shimmering pearl amid the chas- 

 ing of her silver breastplate. 



Yet it was not the beautiful Mute 

 Swan, most beautiful, most stately, and 

 most silent of all created beings, that 

 typified to the men of old the reincarna- 

 tion of the poet's soul; neither the 

 Trumpeter, with its loud clarion, but the 

 more slender Singing Swan of song and 

 story, that "thro' its deathless music sent 

 a dying moan." It was to this swan 

 alone that the ancients could attribute the 

 power of melody — the singular faculty of 

 tuning its dying dirge from among the 

 reedy marshes of its final retreat, where 

 "in a low, plaintive and stridulous voice, 

 in the moment of death, it murmured 

 forth its last prophetic sigh ;" and it was 

 this swan, too, that inspired the philoso- 

 pher Pythagoras to teach that the souls 

 of poets passed at death into swans and 

 retained the powers of harmony they had 

 possessed in their human forms. 



M. Antoine thinks that it is not im- 



probable that the popular and poetical no- 

 tion of the singing of the swan was de- 

 rived from the doctrine of the transmi- 

 gration of souls ; yet the traveler Paus- 

 anius, who spake as one having author- 

 ity, affirmed the swan to be "the glory 

 of music," at the same time preserving 

 the following testimony to the repute of 

 the swan as a bird of prophecy : "In the 

 night before Plato was to become the 

 pupil of Sokrates, the latter in a dream 

 saw a swan take refuge in his bosom. 

 Now the swan has a reputation for music, 

 because a man who loved music very 

 much, Kuknos, the king of the Ligyes 

 beyond the Eridanus, is said to have ruled 

 the land of the Kelts. People relate con- 

 cerning him that, through the will of 

 Apollo, he was changed after his death 

 into a swan." From this evidence Paus- 

 anius thus subtracts the weight of his 

 private opinion : "I am willing to believe 

 that a man who loved music may have 

 ruled over the Ligyes, but that a human 

 being was turned into a bird is a thing 

 impossible for me to believe." 



Mr. Rennie cites, also : "In his Phae- 

 dro, Plato makes Socrates thus expresses 

 hfmself: 'When swans perceive ap- 



137 



