260 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
twenty pounds; but by degrees they fall away, and are 
very thin in spring. When these rats are discovered in 
their retreats, they are found rolled up round, and sunk 
into the hay. During their torpid state, they are carried 
away without being wakened, and they may even be kill- 
ed without appearing to feel it. There is another sort of 
rats, whose sleep is as long and as sound as these, and are 
therefore called the sleepers. Bears eat prodigiously at 
the beginning of winter, as if they meant to eat enough at 
once for their whole lives. As they are naturally fat, and 
are excessively so at the end of autumn, this abundance 
of fat enables them to bear their abstinence during their 
winter’s repose. The badgers prepare for their retreat 
into their burrows in the same manner. The instinct of these, 
and many other animals, teaches them thus to dispense 
with food for a considerable time. — Sturm’s Reflections. 
IV Y . 
Why is it that every one is pleased with the common 
Ivy? There is a charm about that plant which all feel, 
butnone can tell why. Observe ithangingfrom the arch of 
some old bridge, and consider the degree of interest it 
gives to that object. The bridge itself may be beautiful- 
ly situated; the stream passing through its arches clear 
and copious; but still it is the Ivy which gives the finish 
and picturesque effect. Mouldering towers, and castles, 
and ruined cloisters, interest our feelings in a great de- 
gree more or less by the circumstance of their being co- 
vered or not by the Ivy. Precipices, which else would 
exhibit only their naked barren walls, are clothed by it 
in a rich and beautiful vesture. Old trees, whose trunks 
it surrounds, assume a great variety of aspect; and, in- 
deed, it is a most important agent in forming the beauty 
and variety of rural landscape. It is also as useful as it 
is beautiful; and among its uses I would include the very 
thing of which I am now speaking, for I have no idea that 
the forms and colours in nature please the eye by a sort 
of chance. If I admire the Ivy clinging to and surmount- 
ing some time-worn tower, and the various tints that 
diversify the parts of the ruin not hidden by it, I can only 
refer the pleasure I experience to the natural construction 
of the human mind, which the Almighty has formed to 
feel a pleasure in contemplating the external world around 
it. Who is insensible to the beauties of nature at the 
rising and setting of the summer’s sun? Who can behold 
the moon-beams reflected from some silent river, lake, or 
sea, and not feel happy in the sight? None, I believe, in 
early life. When hardened in the ways of men — when 
the chief good pursued is the accumulation of wealth, the 
acquisition of power, or the pursuit of pleasure, so call- 
ed — then mankind lose a sense of the beauties of nature; 
but never, perhaps, till then. A love for them is inhe- 
rent in the mind, and almost always shows itself in youth; 
and if cherished at that period by education, would sel- 
dom be destroyed or become dormant in after life, as it 
now so generally is. 
The Ivy is of vast advantage to the smaller birds, as if 
affords them shelter in winter, and a retreat for building 
their nests in spring and summer. It is in fructification 
in October and November; and the sweet juice which its 
flowers exude supports an infinity of insects in autumn, 
while its berries are a store of nutriment for many birds 
in the early spring. Along with other excellent observa- 
tions relating to this plant, you will find the following in 
the “ Journal of a Naturalist:” — “Those two extreme 
quarters of our year, autumn and spring, yield to most ani- 
mals but a very slender and precarious supply of food; but 
the Ivy in those periods saves many from want and death; 
and the peculiar situations in which it prefers to flourish, 
are essential to the preservation of this supply, as in less 
sheltered ones it would be destroyed. In the month of 
October the Ivy blooms in profusion; and spreading over 
the warm side of some neglected wall, or the sunny bark 
of the broad ash on the bank, its flowers become a univer- 
sal banquet to the insect race. The great black fly, and 
its numerous tribe, with multitudes of small winged crea- 
tures, resort to them ; and there we see those beautiful 
animals, the latest birth of the year, the admiral and 
peacock butterflies, hanging with expanded wings like 
open flowers themselves, enjoying the sunny gleam, and 
feeding on the sweet liquor that distils from the nectary 
of this plant. As this honey is produced in succession by 
the early or latter expansion of the bud, it yields a con- 
stant supply of food till the frosts of November destroy 
the insects, or drive them to their winter retreats. Spring 
arrives; and in the bitter months of March, April, and 
even May, at times, when the wild products of the field 
are nearly consumed, the Ivy ripens its berries, and then 
almost entirely constitutes the food of the missel-thrush, 
wood-pigeon, and some other birds; and now these shy 
and wary birds, that commonly avoid the haunts of man, 
constrained by hunger, will approach our dwellings to 
feed upon the ripe berries of the Ivy. Now, too, the 
blackbird and the thrush resort to its cover, to conceal 
their nests. These early-building birds find little foliage 
at this period sufficient to hide their habitations; and did 
not the Ivy lend its aid to preserve them — and no great 
number are preserved — perhaps few nests would be hid- 
den from the young eyes that seek them. The early 
