Land shells furnish a few birds with part of their sustenance, and the principal of these are two well known songsters, the blackbird and the thrush. They,

——"whose notes Nice finger'd Art must emulate in vain."

depend in great measure, when winter has destroyed their summer food, on the more common species of Hèlices (snails.) These they break very dexterously by reiterated strokes against some stone; and it is not uncommon to find a great quantity of fragments of shells together, as if brought to one particulur stone for this very purpose.—Loudon's Magazine.

Notes of a Reader

SUSSEX COTTAGES

We have been delighted with the following admirable sketch of English comfort from the pen of Mr. Cobbett:

"I never had, that I recollect, a more pleasant journey or ride, than this into Sussex. The weather was pleasant, the elder-trees in full bloom, and they make a fine show; the woods just in their greatest beauty; the grass-fields generally uncut; and the little gardens of the labourers full of flowers; the roses and honeysuckles perfuming the air at every cottage-door. Throughout all England these cottages and gardens are the most interesting objects that the country presents, and they are particularly so in Kent and Sussex. This part of these counties have the great blessing of numerous woods: these furnish fuel, nice sweet fuel, for the heating of ovens and for all other purposes: they afford materials for the making of pretty pigsties, hurdles, and dead fences of various sorts; they afford materials for making little cow-sheds; for the sticking of peas and beans in the gardens; and for giving to every thing a neat and substantial appearance. These gardens, and the look of the cottages, the little flower-gardens, which you every where see, and the beautiful hedges of thorn and of privet; these are the objects to delight the eyes, to gladden the heart, and to fill it with gratitude to God, and with love for the people; and, as far as my observation has gone, they are objects to be seen in no other country in the world. The cattle in Sussex are of a pale red colour, and very fine. I used to think that the Devonshire were the handsomest cows and oxen, but I have changed my mind; those of Sussex, of which I never took so much notice before, are handsomer as well as larger; and the oxen are almost universally used as working cattle.

"Throughout this county I did not observe, in my late ride, one single instance of want of neatness about a poor man's house. It is the same with regard to the middle ranks: all is neat and beautiful, and particularly the hedges, of which I saw the handsomest white thorn hedge at Seddlescomb, that ever I saw in my life. It formed the inclosure of a garden in front of a pretty good house. It was about five feet high, about fifteen inches through; it came close to the ground, and it was sloped a little towards the top on each side, leaving a flat about four inches wide on the top of all. It had just been clipped; and it was as perpendicular and as smooth as a wall: I put my eye and looked along the sides of the several lines near the top, and if it had been built of stone, it could not have been truer. I lament that I did not ask the name of the owner, for it does him infinite credit. Those who see nothing but the nasty slovenly places in which labourers live, round London, know nothing of England. The fruit-trees are all kept in the nicest order; every bit of paling or wall is made use of, for the training of some sort or other. At Lamberhurst, which is one of the most beautiful villages that man ever sat his eyes on, I saw what I never saw before; namely, a gooseberry tree trained against a house. The house was one of those ancient buildings, consisting of a frame of oak wood, the internal filled up with brick, plastered over. The tree had been planted at the foot of one of the perpendicular pieces of wood; from the stem which, mounted up this piece of wood, were taken side limbs to run along the horizontal pieces. There were two windows, round the frame of each of which the limbs had been trained. The height of the highest shoot was about ten feet from the ground, and the horizontal shoots on each side were from eight to ten feet in length. The tree had been judiciously pruned, and all the limbs were full of very large gooseberries, considering the age of the fruit. This is only one instance out of thousands that I saw of extraordinary pains taken with the gardens."

A WINTER'S NIGHT

How beautiful this night! The balmiest sigh Which vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which Love had spread To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, Robed in a garment of untrodden snow; Yon darksome walls, whence icicles depend So stainless, that their white and glittering spears Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep, Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower So idly, that wrapt Fancy deemeth it A metaphor of Peace—all form a scene Where musing Solitude might love to lift Her soul above this sphere of earthliness; Where silence undisturbed might watch alone So cold, so bright, so still.

P.B. SHELLEY.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 379, July 4, 1829

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Notes of a Reader

SUSSEX COTTAGES

A WINTER'S NIGHT

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