130 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 27. 
of the other, after a year or two, gets black and filthy, from 
the accumulated exuvice of successive occupants, so as to he 
often unfit for breeding-bees. But have, then, the standard 
bee-authorities taught in vain—as De Gelieu, Bonner, Bevan, 
Bayne, and Taylor ? Is there not an easy remedy—a whiff 
of tobacco, or the borrowed confidence of a bee-dress ; a 
sharp knife ; a practised hand ; a comb or two to be cut out 
in February or October ? “ Where the will is, there the way 
is," is a motto always truer than is sometimes defensible the 
acting in accordance with its spirit.—A Country Curate. 
May 'Arif, 1852. 
THE VICAR’S BLACKBIRDS. 
(kAvov tpaivav, etcAvov Se floav 
ras Suit ravov. —Eurip. Med. 181. 
(I heard the voice; yea, I heard the wail of the unhappy.) 
“ You must know that I am rather given to brick and 
mortar, and to planting a tree or two—on a very small 
scale. Shelter on this N.E. coast is my ostensible, a feed 
for my pony (my wife says), is my real object. But something 
more, and very gratifying to me, followed these improve¬ 
ments. My shrubs and shelter assembled around me, and 
I was charmed to behold a concourse, absolutely a rush, of 
the feathered world. 
“ A thatched and ivy-clad shed, of which I was the sole 
architect and builder, was intended and used for some 
years as my own lady-bird’s bee-house. In the compart¬ 
ment around this shed in my kitchen-garden, were the well- 
manured asparagus beds and hotbeds of the olden style. 
Birds insectivorous, especially redbreasts, blackbirds, and 
thrushes, were much attracted thither in the winter season. 
The redbreast and other little birds made their nests in the 
ivy. Bobin and Bobina were as familiar as could be looked 
for; laying, sitting, and feeding their young ones, as self 
and spouse sat within listening to the hum of operatives, or 
to the warning flutter, like a plaintive cry, of royalty as yet 
imprisoned in them cells. 
“ This shed was superseded by one in a better aspect for 
bees, S.E. instead of S.W., and slated instead of thatched, 
that it might lie less hospitable to various small intruders. 
My ivy shed still remained, and -was, by public advertise¬ 
ment I should think, made a refuge for destitute chattels. 
Amongst other things, the glasses off the frames were 
stowed away under it, when not in use. The song of the 
thrush and the blackbird is finer here than ever I heard it; 
as if it would compensate a luckless Southron for the 
absence of the nightingale. From what I saw going on, I 
sometimes entertained hopes that some of these birds were 
about to build in the ivy, in order to be nearer to me and 
to my fruit. 
“ Once in particular, a pair of universally familiar black¬ 
birds gave me high hopes of such confidence. They were 
about that spot at all hours of the day. Exceedingly proud 
did the soberly-adorned lady appear of her sprightly and 
glossy mate with the golden beak. And lie vied with Gallus 
himself in his assiduous devotion. If his exertions revealed 
an uncommonly bright and wriggling brandling, he would 
recede a step or two, and look at it; and his lady, as if 
jealous of the merest pretence of admiration not turned 
upon herself, would eagerly hop up, and quickly put out of 
sight the object of his gaze. His tones of welcome were 
the very guava of sound. 
“ Suddenly, however, this pattern of a husband was not 
seen. Had he proved false ? His deserted partner fre¬ 
quented that corner more, rather than less. She was ever 
there. What was the burthen of her incessant soliloquy? 
Did she apostrophize her absent Jo, Jo ! Jo, Jo ! —or, was 
it (pev, (pev ! (pev, (pev ! Ah, me ! Ah, me!—her anxious and 
mellow voice reiterated ? 
“But what is pussy smelling at? See! she endeavours 
to introduce her delicate paw behind the glass ! I stepped 
up with all the haste of alarm, pulled forward the front- 
most frame, looked down behind it, and the melancholy 
truth was revealed. There lay, stiff and lifeless, the subject 
of the bereaved widow’s lament. It was apparent that he 
had dropped down behind the frame, and being unable to 
rise to his place of entrance, could find no other means of 
exit. He had died the slow death of starvation, in the 
sight and hearing of his mate. 
“ Will erect and cold humanity sneer at, and discredit, my 
belief of her utmost and untiring efforts to release and 
relieve him ? Of her agony that they were unavailing ? 
Will they doubt the tenderness, the incentives to new efforts 
which that full voice imparted as long as hope remained ?— 
or the crushing pang of despair which came over that little 
heart when her fond appeal was no longer answered ? Hear 
the sequel, thou sceptic; and learn that deep love, and con- I 
stant, are not entirely engrossed even by woman’s heart. 
“ The mourning bird was ever near the place. Her 
touching plaintiveness was quite infectious. Her (pev, c pev ! 
<pev, <pev ! —it was a trochee, by the lengthening the former, 
rather than unduly shortening the latter syllable—her 
<pev, (pev passed, in a few days, through all those shades of 
sound, which Braham could alone utter in perfection, till 
they arrived at the most decided, and most melting com¬ 
plaint of sorrow. She awaited our approach, as if she 
reckoned upon our sympathy, and claimed our respect for, 
and forbearance from, intrusion upon her grief. By degrees 
she rose more slowly, and with a longer sweep over the 
garden-wall. And then she rose not; but retired and hid 
herself. At length she lay, as near the fatal spot as she 
could get, almost lifeless. I took her gently in my hands, 
and held her tenderly to my breast, hoping to recovor her. 
But no ! She once more and faintly uttered her (pev, (pev ! 
(pev -her head fell back, and her sorrows were past. 
“We have not forgotten thy mournful cries, sweet bird ! 
The ivy shed quickly disappeared. Thy bones and feathers, 
all that sorrow left of thee, repose with thy mate at the 
foot of the neighbouring peach-tree. Thy memory may 
possibly be embalmed in the immortality of the next gor¬ 
geous Sequel to the ‘ Dovecote and the Aviary.’ ” 
[The vicar is heartily thanked for his concluding touch. 
There is so much earnest, real, homo sorrow in the world, 
that they must have but a very incomplete experience of 
life, who, to indulge the luxury of woe, require such a 
stimulus as the poor blackbirds’ tragedy affords—D.] 
BRITISH PARASITICAL FUNGI. 
In my first paper I endeavoured to give a general idea of 
Fungi, as the largest and most interesting Natural Order of 
our British Flora, which, although neglected, are undoubtedly 
worthy of attentive observation ; not only from their beauty, 
the variableness of their forms, colours, and odours, their 
being found at every season and in every situation in which 
vegetation is produced, whether in the earth or on its sur¬ 
face, within fluids or on their surface, and in all parts of the 
globe— 
“ In air, in water, and on earth, 
A thousand germs come struggling forth 
In drought and damp, in heat or cold : ” 
thereby forming the most extensive and interesting field for 
inquiry of any known plants. It is not this alone that 
makes a knowledge of fungi, then- habits and properties, of 
such real importance, but it is the fact that, in the lower 
groups, they prey upon the living bodies of animals, vege¬ 
tables, and provisions destined for man’s support, not only 
depriving them of a majority of their nutritious portions, 
but also rendering what still remains unwholesome and 
injurious, converting, in some instances, wholesome food 
into a dangerous poison ; and, secondly, in the higher and 
more perfect groups, thriving more particularly on animal 
and vegetable substances in a state of decomposition, they 
convert what, if allowed to remain, might prove deleterious 
and offensive to human life, into food the most nutritious of 
all vegetables, and so abundant, and easily and cheaply pre¬ 
served, as to form, with some other indigenous plants 
equally neglected, a most delicious and v aluable article of 
diet. 
I will now consider them first in the lower groups, as 
most worthy the consideration of those interested in agricul¬ 
ture and horticulture ; for although their presence depends 
so much on accidental circumstances that the experienced 
cultivator cannot guard against them altogether, the evil 
may still be considerably lessened by a little attention to the 
careful choice of seed and a judicious changing of crops on 
the land subject to them ; as it is well known that the spores 
of many fungi will only germinate on particular plants or 
