THE INDICATOR. There is a bird in the interior of Africa, whose habits would rather seem to belong to the interior of Fairy-land: but they have been well authenticated. It indicates to honey-hunters, where the nests of wild bees are to be found. It calls them with a cheerful cry, which they answer; and on finding itself recognized, flies and hovers over a hollow tree containing the honey. While they are occupied in collecting it, the bird goes to a little distance, where he observes all that passes; and the hunters, when they have helped themselves, take care to leave him his portion of the food.-This is the CUCULUS INDICATOR of Linnæus, otherwise called the Moroc, Bee Cuckoo, or Honey Bird. There he, arriving, round about doth flie, XLI.-A WORD OR TWO MORE ON STICKS. A CORRESPONDENT, writing to us on this subject, says:-" In my day I have indulged an extravagant fancy for canes and sticks; but, like the children or the fashionable world, I have, in running the round, grown tired of all my favourites, except one of a plain and useful sort. Conceive my mortification in finding this my last prop, not included in your catalogue of sticks most in use; especially since it has become, among us men of sticks, the description most approved. The present day, which is one of mimicry, boasts scarcely any protection except in the very stick I 6 allude to; and yet, because it is so unpresuming in its appearance, and so cheap, the gentlemen of a day' will not condescend to use it. We, Sir, who make a stick our constant companion (notwithstanding our motives may be misunderstood), value the tough, the useful, the highly picturesque ‘Ash Plant." Its still and gentlemanly colour; its peculiar property of bending round the shoulders of a man, without breaking (in the event of our using it that way); the economy of the thing, as economy is the order of the day (at least in minor concerns); its being the best substitute for the old-fashioned horse-whip in a moruing-ride, and now so generally used in lieu of the long hunting-whip in the sports of the chace; answering every purpose for gates, &c., without offering any temptation to do the work of a whipper-in ;—all this, and much more, might be said of the neglected Ground Ash." We must cry mercy on the estimable stick here referred to, and indeed on several other sorts of wood, unjustly omitted in our former article. We also neglected to notice those ingenious and pregnant walkingsticks, which contain swords, inkstands, garden-seats, &c. and sometimes surprise us with playing a tune. As the ancient poets wrote stories of gods visiting people in human shapes, in order to teach a considerate behavour to strangers; so an abstract regard ought to be shewn to all sticks, inasmuch as the irreverent spectator may not know what sort of staff he is encountering. If he does not take care, a man may beat him and "write him down an ass," with the same accomplished implement; or sit down upon it before his face, where there is no chair to be had; or follow up his chastisement with a victorious tune on the flute. As to the ash, to which we would do especial honour, for the sake of our injured, yet at the same time polite and forgiving Correspondent, we have the satisfaction of stating that it hath been reputed the very next wood, in point of utility, to the oak; and hath been famous, time immemorial, for its staffian qualities. Infinite are the spears with which it has supplied the warlike, the sticks it has put into the hands of a less sanguinary courage, the poles it has furnished for hops, vines, &c. and the arbours which it has run up for lovers. The Greek name for it was Melia, or the Honied; from a juice or manna which it drops, and which has been much used in medicine and dying. There are, or were about forty years back, when Count Ginnani wrote his History of the Ravenna Pine Forest, large ash woods in Tuscany, which used to be tapped for those purposes. Virgil calls it the handsomest tree in the forest; Chaucer "the hardie ashe;" and Spenser, "the ash for nothing ill." The ground-ash flourishes the better, the more it is cut and slashed ;;—a sort of improvement, which it sometimes bestows in return upon human kind. XLII. THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. In the time of the Norman reign in Sicily, a vessel bound from that island for Smyrna was driven by a westerly wind upon the island of Cos. The crew did not know where they were, though they had often visited the island; for the trading towns lay in other quarters, and they saw nothing before them but woods and solitudes. They found however a comfortable harbour; and the wind having fallen in the night, they went on shore next morning for water. The country proved as solitary as they thought it; which was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as it was very luxuriant, full of wild figs and grapes, with a rich uneven ground, and stocked with goats and other animals, who fled whenever they appeared. The bees were remarkably numerous; so that the wild honey, fruits, and delicious water, especially one spring which fell into a beautiful marble basin, made them more and more wonder, at every step, that they could see no human inhabitants. Thus idling about and wondering, stretching themselves now and then among the wild thyme and grass, and now getting up to look at some specially fertile place which another called them to see, and which they thought might be turned to fine trading purpose, they came upon a mound covered with trees, which looked into a flat wide lawn of rank grass, with a house at the end of it. They crept nearer towards the house along the mound, still continuing among the trees, for fear they were trespassing at last upon somebody's property. It had a large garden wall at the back, as much covered with ivy as if it had been built of it. Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an unpruned thickness; and neither at the back nor front of the house were there any signs of humanity. It was an ancient marble building, where glass was not to be expected in the windows; but it was much dilapidated, and the grass grew up over the steps. They listened again and again; but nothing was to be heard like a sound of men; nor scarcely of any thing else. There was an intense noon-day silence. Only the hares made a rustling noise as they ran about the long hiding grass. The house looked like the tomb of human nature, amidst the vitality of earth. "Did you see?" said one of the crew, turning pale, and hastening to go. "See what?" said the others. "What looked out of window." They all turned their faces towards the house, but saw nothing. Upon this they laughed at their companion, who persisted however with great earnestness, and with great reluctance at stopping, to say that he saw a strange hideous kind of face look out of window. "Let us go, Sir,” said he, to the Captain ;-" for I tell ye what I know this place now: and you, Signor Gualtier," continued he, turning to a young man, "may now follow that adventure I have often heard you wish to be engaged in.” The crew turned pale, and Gualtier among them. "Yes," added the man, "we : |