90 
HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
“ On te top shelf, dere,” said he, “vas 
stoiies, nice stories, vick ye sells very slieap. 
\ou vas never seen nicer stories any vkeres. 
On te next shelf vas werses — love werses. 
Dey vas really beautiful, and slieap — very 
sheap. On dis shelf here vas werses on 
‘ Spring’ — and dey vas sheap too. Dose pe- 
low vas all on deaths. You could not read 
one ot deni vidout veeping, dey vas so beau- 
tiful and so sheap ! Yen somebody in your 
family dies, dis is te place vliere you can 
find nice poetry vat vill comfort you. And 
it vill cost you only a leetle. Dat large 
package vas all pieces on te 1 Old Year.’ Dat 
one next to it vas on vine and other drinks. 
Dis package here vas made up of sonnets — 
\e gives ’em away, almost. Every thing 
vat you sees vas nice and aheap !” 
“And not too much of Coleridge and 
Wordsworth in them ?” said Barry, with a 
smile. 
“ Oh my, no !” returned Moses, warmly. 
“ Dere vas no Cooleridge, no Vadsvortli, in 
any of ’em. Peters he vas take all dat out.” 
When at last we took leave of the pawn- 
broker, Barry announced that he would be 
prepared to express an opinion on the mer- 
its of Moses’s case in the course of a week ; 
and Clyrner again assured us that he would 
cheerfully pay the whole of the two dollars 
and fifty cents, if by so doing he could make 
an example of the impostor who had ob- 
tained a loan on verses taken from a book. 
I regret to say that Barry did not keep 
his word. Mr. Clyrner was left in doubt as 
to whether he possessed the right to insti- 
tute legal proceedings against the plagia- 
rist. And not many weeks afterward we 
discovered that he had moved from the 
room across the hall to parts unknown. 
The firm of Barry and Busknell may now be 
found in a more aristocratic neighborhood 
than of old. Yet I never pass that dingy 
building on Nassau Street without wonder- 
ing what has become of Moses Clyrner. And 
I never turn to the poetry in a periodical 
without reflecting that perhaps *tliese self- 
same stanzas have secured a loan of two 
dollars from Moses, have been favorably 
passed upon by Crampton, and have had 
the Coleridge and Wordsworth taken out of 
them by Peters. 
AN ORDER FOR A CAMEO. 
It shall he Eve’s face, carver, gleaming white 
Upon the Eden-green of chrysoprase: 
Child-foreheads in the morning are less bright, 
And Gabriel’s less serene. You know her gaze, 
Unfolding from pure lids, saw Adam first, 
And then a glorious, cursed Earth uncursed ; 
So Memory will not darken that still smile 
(Laughter was born of tears), nor Love’s grand pain, 
Nor thorns, nor dying lilies, nor cold rain 
Betray her to a glimpse of afterwhile. 
Miriam and Sappho show the sorrow-stain, 
And Mary’s loving hath its selfish guile. 
Eve knows not Hope’s unrest, nor Fear’s alloy, 
And blesses with the sweet lost dream of Joy. 
CS4IA BIRDS’ NESTS. 
rrio those of my readers who have never 
1 studied birds, let me say a few intro- 
ductory words. In birds, as a class, are 
combined colors which vary from the plain- 
est browns or grays to the richest metallic 
splendors; grace, strength, and often sub- 
limity of action ; and musical powers that 
other animals lack altogether. To the nat- 
uralist, or to him who loves an out-door life, 
their abundance and peculiar relations with 
man offer great advantages ; to the scientist 
they present in a marked way the phenom- 
ena of variation and adaptation. In a lim- 
ited space, such as New England, where not 
many more than three hundred species have 
been known to occur, a tolerably thorough 
knowledge of them may be gained. Have 
the plants or insects been numbered ? Mam- 
mals and reptiles, on the other hand, are 
comparatively rare and shy, and by many 
of them most persons are too easily fright- 
ened. 
To embryologists, birds’ eggs have a pecul- 
iar interest, and in no other form are the 
first outward stages of animal life so attract- 
ive to the ignorant. Among their nests are 
the highest types of natural architecture, 
though many birds lay their eggs on the 
ground, on rocks, or in natural hollows 
without special preparation. Their nests 
may be divided into several classes — those 
supported from beneath, those supported 
from above (or pensile), those attached on 
one side, and those which are excavations 
(in earth or wood). There are many other 
methods of classification, but that just used 
is most convenient for my purposes. 
Let us take up the first class, and consider 
the ground-nesting birds. A striking fact 
is their generally plain coloring, and the 
prevalence of browns and quiet greens 
among the tints of their upper parts — the 
back, etc. As a general rule, their eggs also 
are plainly colored (though rarely white), 
especially when found in fields, but not so 
strikingly as those laid in no nest, or scarce- 
ly any, by sandpipers and plover, whose eggs 
are so assimilated to their surroundings that 
it often requires a very long search to de- 
tect them in a given space ten feet square. 
I have flushed the common “ teeter” within 
a yard of me, and on hands and knees have 
hunted fifteen minutes before finding her 
treasures ; they were among my earliest 
prizes, and, thankful not to have trodden on 
them, I unkindly took them all. But to the 
amateur there is no necessity of cruelty. 
You can become intimate with birds with- 
out shooting them, you can examine their 
nests without pulling them to pieces, and 
can contemplate their eggs without disturb- 
ing them, or, by acting judiciously, can grati- 
fy yourlove of possession without destroying 
a mother’s happiness. Birds vary in their 
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