or Darter, and is accurately delineated in | extending its slender neck through the figure No. 59. Buffon calls it a reptile grafted on the body of a bird. It is an inhabitant of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and is also found frequently in Brazil and Cayenne. It seems to have derived its name from the singular form of its head and neck, which, at a distance, might be mistaken for a serpent. In those countries where noxious animals abound, we may readily conceive that the appearance of this bird, foliage of a tree, would tend to startle the wary traveler, whose imagination had portrayed objects of danger lurking in every thicket. Its habits, too, while in the water, have not a little contributed to its name. It generally swims with its body immerged, especially when apprehensive of danger, its long neck extended above the surface, and vibrating in a peculiar manner. The first individual that I saw in Florida, says Menard, was sneak ing away, to avoid me, along the shore of a reedy marsh which was lined with alligators, and the first impression on my mind was that I beheld a snake; but the recollection of the habits of the bird soon undeceived me. To pursue these birds at such times is useless, as they cannot be induced to rise, or even expose their bodies. Wherever the limbs of a tree project over and dip into the water, there the darters are sure to be found; these situations being convenient resting-places for the purpose of sunning and preening themselves, and probably giving them a better opportunity of observing their finny prey. They crawl from the water upon the limbs, and fix themselves in an upright position, which they maintain in the utmost silence. There is also a variety of the darter found in Africa, of which Le Vaillant says that those who have only seen it issuing from the water, twisting about above the herbage and among the foliage, would easily mistake it for a snake. The last bird among the swimmers which we shall notice, and with which we bring our ornithological recreations to a close, is the Pelican, (figure 60,) of which | many stories have been told, now known | to be fabulous. The pelican is found in the Oriental countries of Europe, on the rivers and lakes of Hungary, and on the River Danube. They are found also in Asia, and are mentioned among the unclean birds of Scripture. They feed on fish, and sometimes devour small quadrupeds and reptiles. They are capable of rapid flight, and have an extraordinary power of rising upward. When they see from an elevated position a fish, or fishes on the surface of the water, they dart down with inconceivable rapidity, and, flapping their large wings so as to stun their prey, fill their pouches, and then retire to the shore to satisfy their voracious appetite. The fish thus carried away in the pouch undergo a sort of maceration before they are received into the stomach, and this grinding process renders the food fit for the young birds. The male is said to supply the wants of the female in the same manner as the parent birds make provision for the nestlings. The under mandible is pressed against the neck and breast to assist the bird in disgorging the contents of its capacious pouch; and during this action the red nail with which the upper mandible is provided appears to come in contact with the breast. This singular process probably laid the foundation for the fable of the pelican nourishing her young with her blood, and for the attitude adopted by painters in portraying the bird with the blood spirting from the wounds made by the terminating nail of the upper mandible into the gaping mouths of her offspring. 66 The subject of Montgomery's beautiful poem, the "Pelican Island," was suggested by a short passage in Captain Flinder's voyage to Terra Australis, in which he describes one of those numerous gulfs which indent the coast of NewHolland, and are thickly spotted with small islands. "Upon two of these," he says, we found many young pelicans unable to fly. Flocks of the old birds were sitting upon the beaches of the lagoon, and it appeared that the islands were their breeding - places; not only so, but from the number of skeletons and bones there scattered, it should seem that, for ages, these had been selected as the closing scene of their existence. Certainly none more likely to be free from disturbance of every kind could have been chosen, than these islets of a hidden lagoon of an uninhabited island, situate upon an unknown coast, near the antipodes of Europe; nor can anything be more consonant to their feelings, if pelicans have any, than quietly to resign their breath, surrounded by their progeny, and in the same spot where they first drew it." The following is one of the poet's pictures of the training of the young: "On beetling rocks the little ones were marshal'd; There by endearments, stripes, example, urged Ascending, hovering, wheeling, or alighting, THE Still HE morning after our arrival at Mora | memory, the memory of a hero who was we took a small boat, and after row- concealed in its dark vault, with his mising perhaps half an hour, landed near the fortunes, his great plans, and Sweden's cellar of Tomtegard. A small wood future welfare in his heart. What feelbuilding covers the place; the cellar is ings, what thoughts have there not lived still entered by a trap door as in the days within these subterranean walls!" of Gustavus Wasa. A good-natured and talkative old woman has charge of the place, who reminded me somewhat of the garrulous personage who long years ago did the honors of Shakspeare's house at Stratford on Avon. The old woman of Tomtegard seemed disposed to do the honors of the establishment in as truly hospitable a manner as had good dame Larsson of old. By way of preliminary she offered us at once a glass of her last brewing. A tallow candle was soon lighted, the trap-door opened, and down broken and precipitous stone steps we entered the cellar which had sheltered the hero. It was a dark spot; not a ray of light entered it. The flickering blaze of the tallow candle showed only rude walls, and an empty, solitary place silent as the grave; "but there lives in it a great Entered according to Aet of Congress, in the year 1856, by Carlton & Porter, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. The tyrant had issued a proclamation throughout the province of Dalecarlia to the effect that whoever afforded shelter or food to the houseless Gustavus Wasa should suffer death; while, on the other hand, an immense sum in gold was offered as the reward of his apprehension. the homeless wanderer passed from one humble hearthstone to another, protected by the honest Dalesmen. The sum of fered for his arrest would have brought the smiles of plenty to many an humble habitation, where starvation was only avoided by a most laborious existence in contact with a severe climate and ungrateful soil. As the story is related an humble peasant woman sat once in the doorway of the house which then covered this rude cellar and sang as she worked the song of the Dalesmen: "God strengthen and gladden the people who dwell By river on hill and in Dalom." It was in the early summer, the glad season to the people of the North, when nature awakes from her long sleep, and every heart seems raised in thankfulness to God that he has made a world so beautiful as that which bursts suddenly upon their sight, in the magic change which the green leaves, the opening flowers, the laughing sunshine, and dreamy beauty of the night brings to the people of the North. But dame Larsson is startled, her song ceases, she looks no longer upon the beautiful lake and its green hill-sides. A body of Danish soldiers approach; she is pale with fright. "Alas! what can they want?" said the Dalwoman, trembling as she gazed; "their haste bodes no good." "They are in pursuit of me," said a voice at her side. 66 Will you give me shelter? I am Gustavus Wasa." "Gustavus Wasa!" exclaimed the as tonished peasant. "Come this way, sir; if I can save you I will." The noble fugitive was hurried down the broken stone steps into the cellar. The trap-door was closed, and a brewing tub placed over it, and good dame Larsson reseated at her spinning wheel before the soldiers had time to enter. "We will search every cottage," said the officer; "perhaps we shall find him in this one. I am convinced he is lurking near." Dame Larsson, rising calmly from her spinning, said, "You are welcome to search my poor hut, sirs; it is not much you will find here." The calmness of the woman saved the hero. The soldiers seemed satisfied, after a hasty glance about the premises, and one of them remarked, "He cannot be here; the woman would never be so calm." "Tell me," said the officer to the Dalwoman, "if a fugitive rebel like Gustavus Wasa came to you for shelter, would you admit him?" "I have never yet turned away any one from my door, or refused hospitality to a stranger," replied the peasant calmly; "and this reminds me I have not offered you a cup of my last brewing. Let me do so now." The officer took the proffered draught, and then departed, calling out as he galloped off with his party, "Remember! if I find you ever extend your hospitality to Gustavus Wasa, nothing shall save you from instant death!" The parsonage of Mora is not on as extensive a scale as the one I have described at Leksand. It is, however, a large establishment and beautifully situated. My companion, who called at the parsonage to leave an introduction which I had brought from Stockholm, returned and told me that the prostina (priest's wife) had a mustache as heavy as his own, but that it was gray. When I saw the lady I did not find the mustache quite as formidable as I had been led to suppose; but it was, at all events, sufficient to identify this lady as the original of Miss Lotta described by Miss Bremer in her" Parsonage of Mora." Miss Lotta, it will be remembered, on account of this appendage, was jestingly called Major." "the From the good parson I learned that Miss Bremer had indulged in some personalities in this novel. Among others, an upper servant in the house had imagined herself caricatured, and had taken mortal offense. I should not have been surprised had this been true of the good prostina, as I could not view the description of Aunt Lotta and her mustache in any other light than rather personal. From Mora I returned upon the border of the lake to Leksand, and continued my journey by a different route toward the south. It was with regret that I left the beautiful Lake of Silja, and the noble race of peasantry living upon its borders. This vicinity, says Miss Bremer, is "the quintessence of Dalecarlia." Here, to use her own language in describing it to me, "I found a land and a people yet in their primeval simplicity and beauty, not spoiled by civilization or the cares and refinements of cultivated life." Of the Dalecarlians in the parsonage of Mora, she says: "Their life is hard. For them ripen no melting fruits; none of the comforts of improvement sweeten and ameliorate their condition. In contact with a severe climate and thankless soil, they secure with difficulty their crops, and mix not seldom their bread with the bark of the fir-tree. Cut off from the rest of the world, except by travels abroad, during which, however, they congregate together and incessantly long after their homes; closely shut up in their valleys, they would stiffen in soul and sense, if they had not families and religion. With sincere affection they bend themselves down to their children, and with deep faith they look up to heaven. Even into the dogmatism of religion they love to penetrate; and many a subtle dogma, which to the |