blance, though the points of difference are still so many and so conspicuous, that the New World is, in all its features taken together, whether of nature or society, very far from the Old.

The authoress of "Rural Hours" has, in a contribution to the beautiful volume, entitled "Home Authors and Home Artists," brought before our mental vision many of the contrasts between our own new, half cleared, wooden-built country and the rural districts of England and France. Of all these, the single difference of the materials of building produces a dissimilarity which strikes the traveler with constant surprise. We remember distinctly, how, on first putting foot on English ground at the little hamlet of Sennen, near the Land's End, and repairing to the humble hostel, called the first and the last inn in England," we were impressed with the stone solidity of the walls before us. Fresh from Central New York, where a stone or brick building was rarely seen out of the towns, and where an outhouse built of anything but pine or hemlock boards was an unknown thing, we were as much surprised at the massy walls of sheds and stables as afterwards at those of castles and ruined abbeys. The cities, though grave and sombre in their air, were not unlike our own, but we found ourselves constantly wondering at the country towns past which we were whirled on the railways. To our eyes, accustomed to the shining New York or New England villages, whose clapboard and shingle "clinker-built" houses, white as paint can make them, gleam through the long valleys for miles, the sober, red and gray, bricky looking villages of Warwickshire and Hampshire were a constant surprise.

Our manner of building is as different from that of Old England as our material. Here no low-eaved, heavythatched cottage hides, under a picturesque exterior, a multitude of sins, and clothes even sullen poverty with humble grace. The poorer class of dwellings in our country are of the barest, thinnest, most chilly appearance, and are as destitute of characteristic expression as the face of a simpleton. Their inmates have, doubtless, a dry board floor instead of the cold earth, and their shingled roofs are better than decaying, soaked and mildewed thatch. Yet, so far as appearances are concerned, the English cottage has an air of snugness and VOL. VI.-3

shelter woefully wanting in the Yankee house, which is, indeed, in this respect, far inferior to the humble log cabin. And then our better houses, close to the highway, erect, stiff, sharpcornered, full of windows as a lantern, so that we look through them from side to side, and see the clouds and sky beyond; they are sufficiently comfortable, but they too often suggest a chill and shiver to the passer-by on a winter day. The English farm-house, in its retired situation, broad, low-roofed, heavily built, sober colored, backed by elms or ashes of a century's growth, may not be really better in a practical way, but it is certainly pleasanter to the eye. Who could put a Yankee white two-story clap-boarded house, surrounded by its white picket fence and some nineteen fresh planted, polelike, hard-maple saplings, in a picture? And yet, how attractive, on the same canvas, is the substantial looking home of the English farmer!

Turn to our farm buildings for the shelter of our crops and four-footed friends. We miss the long row of wellthatched ricks and stacks,-the barn itself, a timber frame with sides of perpendicular boards, and a roof of the straightest, sharpest outline and angles, is simply a rectangular portion of space. enclosed by the thinnest of partitions. We know that our agriculturists consider them better than stone walls with thatched roofs, that they keep hay and grain sweeter and freer from mould; nevertheless, tested by their effect on the eye, and the capacity for pictorial representation, our barns are worse than our houses. Morland could have made nothing of such farm-yards as those of Herkimer and Oneida.

So far as men's work is concerned, the general air of pleasantness and appropriateness is decidedly better in the rural districts of England than in America. That is, in comparing the structures of generations, still existing, or not long passed away. And if we dwell for a moment on the far past, how much there is in England and how very little in America, of interest connected with ages long gone by!

Gilbert White, in his "Selborne," tells us how hundreds of coins bearing the effigies of Antoninus and Faustina, were found in the dried bed of Wolmer Pond. Knapp, in the "Journal of a Naturalist,” in describing his rural parish near the

Severn, gives an account of the still distinct mounds of an encampment attributed to the legions of Ostorius, and of ill-defined, yet undoubted traces of Roman roads. Everybody has read of the still standing towers, of the wall of Severus, in the north of England; of altars, votive inscriptions, and various relics of Roman dominion in the same region. And, not to dwell on the works of a yet remoter period, products of infinite labor of the wild tribes who held Britain previous to the beginning of its written history-such as Stonehenge, or the Pictish towers and vitrified forts of Scotland; nor on the relics of the later, yet half-fabulous, Saxon days—all Britain, and England, in particular, is full of buildings showing the work of the early Normans,, and scarce a parish is without church, or hall, or grange, dating from before the discovery of our continent, and associated with events of public history, or legends of local or family interest.

But how is it with us? An old house built of Dutch bricks, with a crow stepped gable; a mansion temporarily occupied by some general officer in the Revolutionary war-such are the antiquities of our towns. In the country, there is generally nothing, save the Indian flint arrow-heads ploughed up in our fields, that primitive artillery of man, the common relics of the first rude hunter-tribes on either continent. We can trace, in our vicinity, the remains of old fortified villages, whence the Onondaga warriors were summoned eighty years ago, to fall cruelly upon the Mohawk settlements. They are generally situated on a projecting point on the slope of a hill, protected on the sides and front by steep ravines, while a stockade, and, sometimes, a shallow ditch, guarded the more exposed parts of the circuit.

On a Dutch map of the New Netherlands, dated 1659, such forts or enclosures are depicted among the bears and deer, which, "for want of towns," fill the blank now occupied by Central New York; and beneath them is inscribed the explanation, " Modus muniendi apud Mahikanenses." Within the area of these enclosures, burnt spots, with bits of charcoal, mark the sites of the wigwam fires. Among other relics

found on such grounds, we have seen a brass ring, bearing the mystic cipher, IHS., a memento of early Jesuit missions near the "Salt Lake," and a silver medal, stamped on one side with a rude view of Montreal, (the British flag flying from the walls,) while on the reverse is engraved the name and tribe of its tawny owner

CANEIYA.

ONONDAGOS.

But such things as these are not antiquities; they are relics but of a few of the last generations; and whatever dates may be imagined for the inscription on Dighton rock, or the mounds of the West, there is, in Central New York, but slight foundation on which to base any ante-revolutionary history.

But, leaving out of view the works of man, and turning to nature itself, our comparison with England assumes a character more agreeable to our selfcomplacency. Our climate, if, from its extreme variation,* and the sedentary habits it induces, it is less healthy than the mild and humid atmosphere of Britain, is far more splendid in its features; indeed, we may fairly claim that, embracing all the English varieties of weather within other portions of our year, we have, in our intense midwinter and almost tropical summer, two additional seasons beyond those known in the sober land of our forefathers.

Interesting as a comparison of the two climates would be, we forbear to enter upon it, and turn to the consideration of the living forms of the opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The animated population of our woods. and fields presents a close general resemblance to that of Britain, yet, in detail, it is almost entirely different, and, we think, more varied.

Among the larger quadrupeds, now fast disappearing, our cougar is a cat of size and fierceness matched only by tropical species, at least, by no European congener. Two lynxes are here found, to offset the common wild cat of Britain; and the bear, so frequent in our forests, has not been known there within the historical period. Among the deer, our moose is the largest exist

ing form, except the similar, or identical species of Scandinavia, and our wapiti, or stag, is a third larger than the Scottish red deer. Against our common, or Virginia deer, Britain shows two smaller species, the roe and fallow deer.

Turning to the smaller quadrupeds, we find the foxes of both hemispheres closely similar. The European badger is wanting in our Atlantic States, and the field marmot, or "woodchuck," so familiar an object of chase to all our country boys and dogs, is unknown in England. That celebrated politician, the raccoon, has no known relative nearer than in tropical America, and for any species of the remarkable family here represented by the opossum, we must look far beyond the limits of Europe. The British polecat is surpassed, if not in offensiveness of odor, at least in its penetrating and far-reaching power, by our skunk. We do not wonder at Miss Cooper's statement that a family had left its cellar in “quiet and peaceable possession" of one of these intruders until it should take its voluntary departure. One was molested in our cellar once, and though we were at the time half a mile off, we immediately perceived in the air unmistakable evidence of the domestic catastrophe. Burnt pitch and roasted coffee made the house bearable again before long,-but that morning was an event in its history. Our Canada porcupine is a much larger and finer animal than the little hedgehog of England, (they are, by the way, of two very different families of animals, in spite of the similarity of their covering); the British martin is matched by ours, the British weasel and ermine by similar American species. The beaver, now nearly extinct in both countries, and the otter, so rapidly disappearing, are closely allied if not identical forms. We have, however, a miniature of each, unknown in England, which, undestroyed by civilization, will ever remain among us, interesting representatives of the families to which they belong.

This miniature otter is the mink, that large aquatic weasel which haunts all our streams and lakes, harboring under roots and hollow banks, preying on fish, crawfish, and all the tenants of the waters, and occasionally making destructive forays into the poultry yard. We are sorry, since Miss Cooper speaks of him at all, that she can say no more

than the single line,-"The mink lives on fish, haunting ponds; it is about two feet in length." He is too much of a character among our rural population . to be passed over so briefly. We have watched him often with much amusement, diving from driftwood or stones for his scaly prey, or stealing along under the shore in search of some unwary bird or ground squirrel, when he has sometimes ventured past within a yard of our feet as we sat silently on some old tree-trunk lying on the water's edge. We once hooked one on a troutline! While fishing in a quiet pool of a forest stream, a mink, apparently not observing us, swam across it beneath the surface, and as we drew our bait quickly before him, darted at and seized it precisely like a trout. He was hooked but slightly, and after a flounce or two disengaged himself, and escaped in a great hurry. The fur of the mink is among the most beautiful of our peltries, and though long neglected, is now coming into general use for cuffs, victorines, and other many-titled articles for ladies' wear.

Our miniature beaver, the musquash, or musk-rat, is dismissed quite as briefly in "Rural Hours." It is "an aquatic creature, about eighteen inches in length, quite common,"-and that is all. But that is not quite all. We could say a great deal about the musk-rats if we had space. When a boy, we trapped them, we shot them, and caught them in another way, not mentioned in any book of natural history. When coasting the frozen lake with a troop of companions, every weed and stick in the shallow water distinctly visible through the thin transparent ice, we not unfrequently saw beneath it a musquash on one of his subaqueous excursions from his burrow in the bank, searching for shellfish. Skating between him and the shore, the animal was frightened into deeper water, and kept there for some minutes, until, exhausted for want of air, he turned on his back and floated dying under the ice. A hole was soon broken, and the poor musquash pulled out and dispatched, when he would be carried swinging by the tail from the hand of his young murderer for miles, and finally flayed, and his pelt sold for eighteen pence to the hatter. We regret our share in such tragedies now, and indulge the race as far as possible to make amends.

They haunt our boat-house freely, sit and eat clams on the steps of our bath and cover the bottom with a debris of sharp-edged shells with impunity, and are not molested even for bringing, in the Autumn, bushels of sticks and weeds, and building their rude beaverhouses under the roof. These cabins are conspicuous among the reeds and willows of our marshes and ponds in November; domed structures like small haycocks, in which the furry families nestle through the cold weather, and whence they have covered ways to the waters below the ice, there to swim to and fro, and gather shells and roots at will.

The two last mentioned animals are unknown in England, and unrepresented by any similar forms, the common British water-rat being far smaller than our musk-rat, and having different habits.

If we consider the hares and rabbits, the species on opposite sides of the Atlantic are about equal in number. Our hare, however, instead of frequenting open ground, like its British congener, inhabits dense marshy woods, so that, if no other cause existed, its chase à l'Anglaise, with horse and hound and horn, would be impracticable.

Squirrels are found with us in remarkable variety. In place of the common British squirrel, we have not only the similar red squirrel, but the large black and gray kinds, the remarkable nocturnal flying squirrel, and the striped ground squirrel, or chipmuck, are found in almost every wood. If the last-mentioned little fellow had been an Englishman, he would have long since been celebrated in many a country book and rustic story. In our garden, they have been so numerous, at the cherry-season (gathering the pits), that they seemed to replace the bright and almost equally active lizards which so abound in the gardens of Italy; like them, scampering across the walks and running up the fences in every direction. The various squirrels half domesticated in the public squares of Philadelphia, are a beautiful feature in those pleasant grounds.

Leaving the quadrupeds, and not stopping to remark on the bond of union between the two countries, existing in their common stock of domestic rats and mice, or the differences in their aboriginal population of field-mice, moles and shrews, let as briefly com

pare the birds of the two sides of the Atlantic.

Beginning with the predaceous tribes of eagles, hawks, and owls, we find a few identical species existing on both shores, such as the golden eagle, the peregrine falcon, the osprey, and the great white owl. Generally, however, the species are not the same, but there is about an equal number and variety in each country; and species are found to represent, in each, those of the other, generally corresponding in size, form, and habits.

And, while speaking of hawks and owls, we owe a brief tribute to the memory of one of the latter, with whom we were intimate some years ago. Caught unfledged, and turned out of doors as soon as he could fly (for we were tired of providing for him in the house), he refused to leave us at all. He would sit all day in the fork of a pine, and towards sunset would come out and be very sociable, always sweeping down to our feet when summoned by clapping the hands, and following us for a bit of meat, or, what he preferred, a small fish. On giving him half a dozen at once, we have seen him thoughtlessly bolt them indiscriminately, heads or tails foremost, but, on perceiving the error, he would bring them all up again, and swallow them regularly, head first. He was of the large species, the Virginia horned owl, with powerful beak and talons, eyes large and round as dimes, and wings three or four feet in extent, and, when sailing noiselessly down directly to us, often reminded us of the harpies of ancient fable. once scared out of the dining-room a whole bevy of ladies, seated at their summer evening tea, by soaring in at the open window, and perching in the centre of the table on a dish of blackberries. Growing older, his predatory instinct began to develop itself, and after pouncing on and prostrating the head of our family of poultry, he was exiled to the woods, whither our best wishes and many regrets attended him.

He

In no branch of natural history is more conspicuous, than in the birds, that remarkable system, in accordance with which the fauna of remote regions is so generally found to be made up of forms not identical with, but closely analogous to each other. The English thrushes, including the nightingale, are here unknown, but they are fairly rep