REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS 
385 
hind the unexpected shooter, who has thus stolen a march 
on them, and as they rarely, if ever, cross the ridges, but 
fly straight along the gorge, they so afford fitir shots. 
For my own part, 1 do not consider it worth the while, 
as the law now stands, to go out in pursuit of Ruffed 
Grouse with dogs, where you expect to find no other 
species of game; for, in the first place, they ramble so 
widely, that there is no certainty of finding them within 
ten miles of the spot where you may have seen them daily 
for a month; and, secondly, if you do find them, there is 
no certainty of having sport with them, but rather a pro¬ 
bability of reverse. As an adjunct to other kinds of shoot¬ 
ing they are excellent, but as sole objects of pursuit, I 
think, worthless. I have often blundered on them by 
chance while hunting for other game; but when I have 
gone out expressly in pursuit of them, I have never had 
even tolerable sport. 
If the law were altered, and September shooting per¬ 
mitted, the case would be altered also; and in many re¬ 
gions of our country, as the Kaatskill Mountains, and 
some parts of Columbia and Saratoga counties, in New 
York; the Pocono Mountains, and the Blue Ridge, gene¬ 
rally, in Pennsylvania; and many districts of Maine, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, rare sport 
might be had. For September shooting, No. 8 shot will be 
found sufficient; but after that, No. 7; and very late in 
the season, Eley’s wire cartridges will be found the most 
effective. 
This widely extended bird is too well known to require 
any peculiar description; and I shall content myself with 
observing, in aid of my portraiture of the Ruffed Grouse, 
that the upper part of its head and hind neck are reddish- 
brown, the back rich chestnut, mottled with heart-shaped 
spots of white, edged with black. The tail is bright red¬ 
dish-yellow, barred and speckled with black, and bordered 
by a broad, black belt between two narrow white bands, 
one at the extremity of the tail. The iris of the eye hazel, 
bill brown, feet brownish gray. Loral band cream color. 
Throat and fore neck, brownish-yellow. Upper ruff- 
feathei’s barred with brown. Wings brownish-red, 
streaked with black. Breast and abdomen cream colored, 
closely barred above, and laterally spotted below, with 
dark chocolate. Length 18 inches, spread of wings 2 feet. 
The Ruffed Grouse is a capital bird on the table. The 
breast white meat, back and thighs brown. It should be 
roasted quickly, eaten with bread sauce and fried crumbs, 
and washed down with sherry or red wine. 
-H./.S fx. 
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. 
Astrcea ; 'Pi.e Balance of Delusions. A Poem Delivered 
before the %hi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, 
Aug 14, 1850;\By Oliver Wendall Holmes. Boston: 
TicJcnor, Reed K/elds. 1 vol. 16 mo. 
Few college poems Rave attained, at the period of their 
delivery, so flattering a falag as did this last product of Dr. 
Holmes’s foigetive and flashing brain ; and it is now pub¬ 
lished “by request of the Society,” and demand of the 
public. Though it has not the geniality of “ Urania,” nor its 
sustained sweetness and subtility ofi^entiment, it is the 
greatest of the author’s long poems in Incision and depth 
both of feeling and satire, and exhibits,perhaps, more 
than his usual command of the powers and ’‘i|qlicacies of 
expression. The verse is a study for all heroic%hymers, 
being fully equal to all the purposes of wit, fanq’jk ima¬ 
gination and passion, and combining the utmost finish in 
separate lines with a bounding movement in the \vhdl 
The poem is a succession of beautiful pictures, grave am 
mirthful, each of which symbolizes some powerful thouj 
or tender feeling, and some of which are hardly 
in our poetry for brilliancy of effect. The satir/'is less 
frolicksome than usual; here and there, indeed; its 
draws blood ; and the whole poem is cone 
cuted in a sterner and more earnest 
with Dr. Holmes. 
The opening paragraphs contain 
spirit/ 
sting 
cd and exe- 
lan is common 
'most beautiful and 
delicate tribute to the author’s fifflfer, who was educated 
at Yale. The following lines/refer, we suppose, to Dr. 
Stiles, the president of the college at the time the elder 
Holmes was a student, and'eontain an exquisite picture of 
the filial relations of mpmer and pupil: 
How the "reat Master, reverend, solemn, wise, 
Fixed on liis Awe those calm, majestic eyes, 
Full of grave/meaning, where a child might read 
The Ilebruj^t’s patience and the Pilgrim’s creed, 
But wamfwith flashes of parental fire 
That dj^vv the stripling to his second sire; 
foulness ripened, till the youth might dare 
Tathe low seat beside his sacred chair, 
lile the gray scholar, bending o’er the young, 
:lled the square types of Abraham" 1 s ancient tongue, 
- - — — „-‘- i mm —i —wmmmmmmiiMmmmmmmtm mmtmm 
Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly q^r 
His small coarse leaf, alive with curicWs lore; 
Tales of grim judges, at whose awfiipbeck 
Flashed the broad blade across a rqjml neck, 
Or learned dreams of Israel’s long-lost child 
Found in the wanderer of the Western wild. 
The revival of nature at the^fpproach of spring has been 
often described by poets, byti the following passage prints 
the scenes fresh and brisftt on the heart and imagination, 
as if it had never before found its painter. The readeT 
cannot fail to notic# the nice propriety of the descriptive 
epithets, and tha/combination of the naturalist’s minute 
observation w/fh the poet’s suggestive imagination, in the 
whole representation; 
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms 
lath the wrecks of unresisted storms; 
iubtful at first, suspected more than seen, 
'he southern slopes are fringed with tender green; 
sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves, 
Spring’s earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, 
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won, 
*^Yhite, azure, golden—drift, or sky, or sun ;— 
snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast 
Theffrozen trophy torn from winter’s crest; 
The Violet, gazing on the arch of blue 
Till her’cvwn iris wears its deepened hue; 
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould 
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. 
Swelled with hew life, the darkening elm on high 
Prints her thicK'fyuds against the spotted sky ; 
On all her bough^he stately chestnut cleaves 
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves; 
The house-fly, stealiiigsffrom his narrow grave, 
Drugged with the opiate tjiat November gave, 
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls, 
In languid curves, the glidirik serpent crawls ; 
The bog’s green harper, thawiW from his sleep, 
Twangs a hoarse note and tries ab^shortened leap; 
On floating rails that face the soft$Hjng noons 
The still shy turtles range their darlcfilat.oons , 
Or toiling, aimless, o’er the mellowingSfields, 
Trail through the grass their tessellated shields. 
At last young April, ever frail and fair, 
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair, 
Chased to the margin of receding floods 
O'er the soft meadoivs starred ivith opening buds, 
In tears and blushes sighs herself away, 
bmoAUlMJk 
