[THE SOLAN GOOSE.]
Mr Frank Buckland has been experimenting upon the anatomical construction of the gannet, and says it possesses in its body the most perfect aeronautic machinery that can be conceived. There is a communication between the lungs, the feathers, and the hollow bones of the bird, by means of which it is able to inflate itself like a balloon. The gannet on which Mr Buckland experimented measured nine inches across the chest, but when inflated it measured fourteen inches. By suddenly pressing the inflated body, the dead bird immediately gave out the loud call of the bird when alive, the sound being produced by means of the air passing through the voice-box at the bottom of the windpipe. The gannet can instantaneously extrude all this air from its lungs, bones, and feathers; and this enables it to drop down from a height upon its prey in the sea with amazing force and rapidity. Some years ago one of these birds was flying over Penzance in Cornwall, when seeing some pilchards lying on a fir plank, in a place for curing those fish, it darted itself down with so much violence as to stick its bill quite through an inch and a quarter plank, and kill itself on the spot. The bones of the bird's neck are of amazing strength, and as hard as an iron rod. The head is joined to the atlas by a beautiful ball-and-socket joint.—Newspaper paragraph.
[THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS.]
FROM THE GERMAN.
Fragrant daughters of the earth,
Love presided at your birth;
Fancy, by your floral aid,
Passion's ardour oft portrayed;
Let me, then, a garland twine
Of varied hues, to picture mine.
Purity, with brow serene,
Heeds no costly jewel's sheen;
Cull the Lily's blossom sweet
To strew the path beneath her feet.
In its virgin hue we find
An image of the spotless mind.
Braid the maiden's glossy hair;
Place the verdant Myrtle there;
Love, with roses myrtle blended,
When to earth He first descended;
It will blossom brighter now,
On the fair one's snowy brow.
Shining Laurel, let not Fame
Your leaves, for heroes only, claim;
On blood-stained fields they gain the prize
The Poet wins in peaceful guise;
The poets, then, with heroes share
The right the laurel crown to wear.