of our common song birds live upon insects 

 injurious to the farmer, and when sheltered [ 

 and protected they become his efficient help- 

 ers in saving from harm the harvest of his 

 fields, working free of charges and boarding 

 themselves. 



At a Land and Forest Congress held at 

 Vienna during the past summer, at which 

 some three hundred delegates from nearly 

 every civilized country were present, the 

 importance of birds to the agriculturist 

 was earnestly discussed, and a series of 

 resolutions offered tending to protect and en- 

 courage, them, by asking from all governments 

 prohibitions and penalties against their injury 

 or destruction. These useful allies of the 

 field should be alike protected by stringent 

 game laws and by a generous and appreciating 

 public sentiment, favoring abundant oppor- 

 tunities for nesting in groves suited to their 

 habits, and secure from harm. 



Some, like the robin, make their homes in 

 the orchard, and in ihe trees around om- dwel- 

 lings; but many more of great utility, love 

 the seclusion of groves apart from human 

 habitations, and we lose their services, where 

 these shelters do not exist. 



The records of rain-fall kept at various sta. , 

 tions in this State and the United States, do | 

 not justify us in believing that any consid- ! 

 erable amount of change has occurred in the ' 

 total amount from year to year, although the 

 distribution of rain and snow among the seas- 

 ons is in many cases more irregular, as the 

 country becomes older, and the wood lands 

 less. Seasons of unusual drouth may succeed 

 each other for several- years together, and dis- 

 astrous floods appear to be of more frequent 

 occurrence now than formerly. 



The great source of supply of aqueous vapor, 

 which foitus rain, is from the sea itself. The 

 evaporation from its surface is constant, and 

 over broad acres, under a tropical sun, the 

 amount raised as vapor and borne landward 

 by the winds is immense, and may be regarded i 

 as nearly uniform from year to year. If the | 

 surface were all water, we may readily believe 

 that the changes of weather would follow m 

 strictly regular succession, like day and night, 

 and like winter and summer. But as a part 

 of the surface is land, and of very uneaqual 

 contour, we find the vicissitudes of the 

 weather continually changing, froni causes 

 not yet fully understood. In some regions 

 rains are altogether unknown; in others, they 



are profuse, and in others scanty or abundant, 

 as the causes which influence their precipita- 

 tions are changed by the operations of nature, 

 or through the agency of man. 



Aqueous vapor is always present in our at- 

 mosphere, and when rain is most needed it is of- 

 ten in quantities sufficient for every waDt,'if 

 the temperature from any cause could be suf- 

 ficiently reduced. This vapor is not usually 

 perceptible to the senses, being held in sus- 

 pension 'by the air. The capacity for absorb- 

 ing vapor increases with the temperature, so 

 that at the freezing point, the air can support 

 but a one hundred and sixtieth part of its 

 weight of vapor, while at 86o, it can hold a 

 fortieth part, and at 113" a twentieth part. If 

 from the common air, under a glass receiver, 



' we exhaust a part,' the remainder will expand 

 to fill the whole space, and in so doing cools, 

 and its capacity for holding vapor In suspen- 

 sion diminishes, until it may reach the point 

 of saturation, and a dew will begin to form on 

 the inner side of the glass, the air within being 

 obscured by tog. The temperature at which 

 this dew begins to appear is called the dew 

 point, and to this degree must the air be always 

 reduced before clouds and rain can be formed. 

 In meteorological observations, the absolute 

 and relative humidity are usually determined 

 from a pair of thermometers, one covered 

 with muslin and moistened with water. This 

 instrument when wet, presently falls to a sta- 

 tionary degree, which is the dew point. The 

 differences of reading with the aid of tables, 

 readily afford the means of knowing the abso- 

 lute humidity or total amount of vapor in the 

 air, or its elastic force, represented by the 

 height of a column of mercury which this 

 force would support, and the reloMve humidity 

 or ratio of the quantity of vapor present, ex 

 pressed in decimals, absolute degrees being 

 zero, and saturation 1.00. 



There have not hitherto been taken within 

 our State, any continued series of these psy- 

 chrometical observations through many years 

 of time. But to illustrate the subject, I have 

 prepared from the records of the Toronto Mag- 

 netic and Meteorological Observatory, which 

 have been kept with great accuracy under uni- 

 form rules, for over twenty years, some tables 

 which give results quite similar to those we 

 might expect in our State. The first of these 

 exhiljits the mean monthly elastic force of the 



I vapor, and the second the mean monthly hu- 



I midity: — 



