THE NIGHT-JAR.

NEARLY allied to the swallow, both in form and manners, is this bird, which visits England about May, and is a great destroyer of cockchafers and beetles. It hawks on the wing for insects in the dusk of the evening, and renders service to man by making them its prey. It is fond of the woods, and also the banks on the margin of rivers. Its note resembles the noise of a spinning-wheel. From its nocturnal habits it derives its name, and is often called the night-hawk, the eve-jar, and the fern-owl. It departs in the end of August, or the beginning of September.

This bird has a wide mouth, but as it cannot close its bill at the sides, it is unable to suck anything, and has therefore been called, in ignorance, the goat-sucker. In some parts of the country, too, it is thought to wean calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at them, a fatal distemper, known by the name of puckeridge. But as its structure shows it cannot injure the goat-herd, so the grazier, instead of sustaining injury, is under obligation

to it; for this striking at the cattle is, in fact, the leap taken by the bird at the flies which in the evening torment the herd-a service of which these creatures are sensible.

White of Selborne says: "This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the close of day so exactly, that I have known it strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the weather is still."

The night-jar makes no nest, but lays two eggs amongst fern, heath, or long grass, and sometimes in woods or furze, on the bare ground, but at all times near to woods, where it conceals itself during the day. It generally sits on the earth; but if disturbed, frequently perches on the branch of a tree, not across, as is usual with most birds, but generally lengthwise.

THE RAVEN.

THIS bird is well known among the feathered race by his harsh croaking note, and his sable plumage. It appears that black was a colour greatly esteemed among the ancients, who considered it emblematical of the inscrutable nature of Deity.

The raven delights in solitude, frequenting the ruined tower or the deserted habitation. To send a person to the ravens, was the same among the ancient Greeks as to imprecate his banishment from the comforts of civil society, his endurance of the wants and sufferings of solitary exile, his being cut off by a shameful death, his privation of the rites of burial, and his becoming a banquet to the birds of prey. The presence of the raven is the emblem of desolation, as it is when the prophet, foretelling the doom of Edom, says, "The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it;" and similar language is employed by Zephaniah in reference to Nineveh. Yes, in those splendid palaces, where the voice of joy and glad

ness was heard, silence, in consequence of the wickedness of their inhabitants, was to prevail, interrupted only by the scream of the cormorant, and the croaking of the raven.

Solomon says, "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Some light will be cast on this passage, by remem bering that it was a common punishment in the East, and one which the Orientals dreaded above all others, to expose the bodies of evil-doers that had suffered by the outraged laws of their country, to be devoured by the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven. An old man in Aristophanes deprecates being given as a banquet to the ravens; and Horace represents such a punishment as the most degraded of all. It has, therefore, been conjectured, that Solomon alluded to the valley of Tophet, in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which the prophet Jeremiah calls the valley of the dead bodies, because those of criminals were cast into it, and there they remained without burial, till they were devoured by flocks of ravens, which collected for that purpose from the surrounding country. Should this conclusion be correct, the meaning of Solomon will be - He who disobeys his parents, exposes himself to an infamous

punishment he shall be cast into the valley of the dead, and shall be a prey to the voracious raven. Death was the punishment of this offence under the Mosaic law, and it always must be chargeable with great guilt, and attended by the Divine displeasure.

And yet, however repulsive the raven may sometimes appear, it is described as an object of care to the Maker and Preserver of all things. When the voice of the Most High addressed Job out of the whirlwind, it inquired, "Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat." For while God "giveth to the beast his food," he ministereth also "to the young ravens which cry.” "Consider the ravens," said our Lord: "for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them." For these creatures are the work of infinite wisdom and power; they have their proper sphere of action, and they usefully employ their qualities and instinct both for themselves and the other parts of the lower creation. With what force and point then does the argument of the gracious Redeemer come to us :-If your heavenly Father listen to the cry of the young raven, will he not much more make you his care? He is too great for any thing to be little in his estimation.