246 
With one other reference I shall conclude, and perhaps I could not select a 
more appropriate one, recalling as it does the closing in of those delightful conti¬ 
nental evenings when, after the setting of a sun in glory and splendour unknown 
in our hazy and turbid atmosphere, the dew r s have fallen and left the world in 
darkness, the still air glowing with radiant warmth unaccompanied with damps 
and chills, rendering it so treacherous a temptation for enjoyment in less fa¬ 
voured climates. I allude to the Fire Flies (Lampyris Italica ?), which, avail¬ 
ing themselves of this sweet time of night, now light their phosphorescent lamps 
and flit before the traveller like twinkling stars. There is something mysterious 
and unearthly in their silent flight; slowly sailing in suitable harmony with the 
quiescence of the time of night, bursting into brilliancy, as it were, from vacancy, 
and then as suddenly vanishing into nothingness. Not an evening passed after 
a sultry day in the districts of the Upper Rhine, from Briihl and Andernach up 
to Baden, when thesfe lovely, ghost-like insects might not be seen. The Germans 
call them by a name implying the lamp of the dead, and a more appropriate one 
could not be applied; for we might well conceive that, if the spirits of departed 
beings were allowed to revisit this nether world, they would gleam and flit before 
us with that gliding, solemn, silent motion,-peculiar to the Fire Flies of Germany. 
E. S. 
NOTES ON THE MONTHS. 
January. 
“ There’s beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes 
Can trace it ’midst familiar things and through their lowly guise ; 
We may find it in the winter boughs as they cross the cold blue sky, 
While soft on icy pool and stream their pencilled shadows lie ; 
When we look upon their tracery by the fairy frost-work bound ; 
When the flitting Redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground.” 
Mrs. He mans. 
The observation of the natural appearances of the year during each of its 
revolving months, is an occupation suited to every rank and age, and is productive 
of the purest and most exquisite enjoyment of mind, as well as of the most salu¬ 
tary influence upon the body. Yet this source of gratification and improvement 
