GLEANINGS. 



403 



Still provident, with sleepless care 

 To keep ; to make thee sweet and fair 

 For man's enjoyment, kind ! 



5 < There is no God," the senseless say : — 

 « O God, why cast'st thou us away ?" 

 Of feeble faith and frail 

 The mourner breathes his anxious thought — 

 By thee a better lesson taught, 

 Sweet lily of the vale. 



Yes ! He who made and fosters thee, 

 In reason's eye perforce must be 



Of majesty divine : 

 Nor deems she that his guardian care 

 Will He in man's support forbear, 



Who thus provides for thine. 



Ruricola*. 



Holy wood, Ireland, July 2Jlk, 1833. 



GLEANINGS. 



BY SOLITARIUS. 



Mice imitating the grasshopper's chirp. — In a filed opposite 

 Porto Bello farm., near Wormwood Scrubbs, one evening in last May., 

 my attention was attracted by a noise at the bottom of a hedge resem- 

 bling the chirping of a grasshopper, but accompanied by a rustling 

 among the dry reeds and fallen sticks that lay beneath, caused by some 

 little animal running and jumping under and over them alternately. 

 This circumstance I have often observed in the country, and from the 

 hasty glimpse which I have now and then obtained of the animal, I 

 came to the conclusion that it was some shy little bird, and which, for 

 the want of a name, I christened the hedge-creeper ; but since I read 

 " White's Selborne," I renounced that name, feeling satisfied that it 

 must be the grasshopper warbler. But in the present instance, I 

 embraced the opportunity of assuring myself as to its species, with 

 which view I cautiously advanced towards the hedge and patiently 

 awaited, hoping to obtain another sight of it, but my approach had 

 frightened it, and all was still for some time. I was bending over the 

 bank, when suddenly I heard the same noise as before, and saw the 

 little author of it run out from under the dead stalks, and giving a 

 fluttering sort of jump, which defied one to form any idea of its shape, 



* Will Ruricola have the goodness to inform us where a letter may at present 

 find him. — Editor. 



