If storms or shadows dark affright,
My love endures and conquers fears!
SOME EARLY RISERS.
An ornithologist, having investigated the question of at what hour in summer the commonest small birds wake and sing, says the greenfinch is the earliest riser, as it pipes as early as 1:30 in the morning, the blackcap beginning at about 2:30. It is nearly 4:00 o'clock, and the sun is well above the horizon before the first real songster appears in the person of the blackbird. He is heard a half an hour before the thrush, and the chirp of the robin begins about the same length of time before that of the wren. The house sparrow and the tomtit occupy the last place in the list. This investigation has ruined the lark's reputation for early rising. That much-celebrated bird is quite a sluggard, as it does not rise until long after the chaffinches, linnets, and a number of hedgerow birds have been up and about.
THE YOUNG NATURALIST.
TESTING THE CLEANNESS OF THE AIR.—Professor Dewar has recently devised a new method of testing the contamination of the air. A short time ago he exhibited before the Royal institution two samples of liquid air in glass tubes—one was made from air which had been washed to purify it from dust, soot, carbonic acid and other impurities. This, when condensed, was a pale blue liquid. The other sample was made by condensing the air of the lecture-room in which the audience was assembled, and was an opaque, blackish fluid, resembling soup in appearance.