EXERCISES. 1. To what is steam compared in the first stanza? What words indicate the comparison? 2. What is meant when it is said that steam "lay concealed from sight"? What is a wayward breeze? Why is it called wayward? What is the panting courser? Why the epithet, panting? What is the carrier dove? What is meant when saying that steam is "bound to the rushing keel" and "chained to the flying car"? 3. Mention some of the things that steam does for us. ex-clud'-ed, thrust out from. sup-press'-ed, low, indis func'-tions, powers. tinctly uttered. he-red'-it-ar-y, one's own by vol'-un-tar-y, acting at one's heirdom. own will. YOUNG birds cannot fly as soon as they are hatched, because they have no wing feathers; but as soon as these are developed, and even before they are perfectly strong, they use their wings, fly, and quit their nests, without any education from their parents. Compare a young quail, when a few days old, with a child of as many months. He flies, runs, seeks his food, avoids danger, and obeys the calls of his mother; whilst a child is perfectly helpless, and can perform few voluntary motions, has barely learnt to grasp, and can neither stand nor walk. Look at common domestic poultry. As soon as they are excluded from the egg, they run round their mother, nestle in her feathers, and obey her call, without education. She leads them to some spot, where there is soft earth or dung, and instantly begins scratching with her feet. The chickens watch her motions with the utmost attention. If an earthworm or ant is turned up, they instantly seize and devour it, but they avoid eating sticks, grass, or straw; and, though the hen shows them the example of picking up the grain, they do not imitate her in this respect, but for some days prefer ants to a barley-corn. Does the mother see the shadow of a kite on the ground, or hear his scream in the air? She instantly utters a shrill, suppressed cry, the chickens, though born that day, and searching round her with glee and admiration for the food which her feet were providing for them, instantly appear as if thunderstruck. Those close to her couch down and hide themselves in the straw; those further off, without moving from the place, remain prostrate-the hen looks upward with a watchful eye-nor do they resume their feeding till they have been called again by the chuck of their mother, and warned that the danger is over. Examine young ducks which have been hatched under a hen; they no sooner quit the shell than they fly to their natural element, the water, in spite of the great anxiety and terror of their fosterparent, who in vain repeats the sound to which her natural children are so obedient. Being in the water, they seize insects of every kind, which they can only know from their instincts to be good for food. I will mention another instance. A friend of mine was travelling in the interior of Ceylon. On the bank of a lake he saw some fragments of shells of the eggs of the alligator, and heard a subterraneous sound. His curiosity was excited, and he was induced to search beneath the surface of the sand. Besides two or three young animals lately come from the shell, he found several eggs which were still entire. He broke the shell of one of them, when a young alligator came forth, apparently perfect in all its functions and motions, and, when my friend touched it with a stick, it assumed a threatening aspect, and bit the stick with violence. It made towards the water, which (though born by the influence of the sunbeams on the burning sand) it seemed to know was its natural and hereditary domain. Here is an animal, which, deserted by its parents, and entirely submitted to the mercy of nature and the elements, must die if it had to acquire its knowledge; but all its powers are given, all its wants supplied, and even its means of offence and defence implanted, by strong and perfect instincts. The young I will mention one fact more. cuckoo is produced from an egg deposited by his mother in the nest of another bird, generally the hedge-sparrow. He destroys all the other young ones hatched in the same nest, and is supplied with food by its foster-parent, after he has deprived her of all her natural offspring. Quite solitary, he is no sooner able to fly than he quits the country of his birth, and finds his way, with no other guide than his instinct, to a land where his parents had gone many weeks before him, and he is not pressed to make this emigration by want of food, for the insects and grains on which he feeds are still abundant. The whole history of the origin, education, and migration of this singular bird, is a history of a succession of instincts, the more remarkable because, in many respects, contrary to the usual order of nature. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. EXERCISES. 1. What is the first example of instinct given in the lesson? Why cannot young birds fly as soon as they are hatched? Compare a young child with a young quail in this respect. 2. Give examples of instinct from the case of domestic poultry. How does a hen warn her chickens of the approach of danger? How does a young duck that had been hatched by a hen show its instinct? 3. Where is Ceylon? What examples of instinct are given from the alligator and the cuckoo? 4. What are voluntary motions? What is a foster-mother? What is meant by remaining prostrate? What is meant by means of offence and defence? Give another meaning of the word offence. 5. Give the derivation of education, motions, domestic, excluded, attention, prefer, suppressed, prostrate, obedient, fragments, induced, aspect. 6. Connect the meaning of the following words with the root of attention :-Tendency, distend, subtend, extend, contend, intend, superintend, pretend, tension, tent, portend, pretence. LESSON XXXVII. The Miner's Dangers. in-ten'-sit-y, keenness. cal'-cined, reduced to powder mess'-es, dishes, articles of A HUM of human voices rose from a village in the centre of England, but they were those of women, girls, and children, the latter playing in the street, running, skipping, laughing, singing, and shouting in shrill tones, the former in their yards or in front of their dwellings, following such avocations as could be carried on out of doors on that warm summer evening. Not a man or lad, not even a boy above eight years old, was to be seen. On one side of the village far away could be distinguished green fields, picturesque hills, widespreading trees, and a sparkling stream flowing in their midst; on the other, nearer at hand, a dreary black region, the ground covered with calcined heaps, the roads composed of coal dust or ashes, |