Mr. Jenyns relates a good owl-story. He knew a tame owl, who was so fond of music that he would enter the drawing-room of an evening, and, perching on the shoulder of one of the children, listen with great attention to the tones of the piano-forte: holding his head first on one side, then on the other, after the manner of connoisseurs. One night, suddenly, spreading his wings, as if unable to endure his rapture any longer, he alighted on the keys, and, driving away the fingers of the performer with his beak, began to hop about upon the keys himself, apparently in great delight with his own execution. This pianist's name was Keevie. He was born in the woods of Northumberland, and belonged to a friend of the Reverend Mr. Jenyns.
Good bear-stories are numerous. One of the best we take from the "Zoological Anecdotes." At a hunt in Sweden, an old soldier was charged by a bear. His musket missed fire, and the animal being close upon him, he made a thrust, in the hope of driving the muzzle of his piece down the bear's throat. But the thrust was parried by one of huge paws with all the skill of a fencer, and the musket wrested from the soldier's hand, who was forthwith laid prostrate. He lay quiet, and the bear, after smelling, thought he was dead, and then left him to examine the musket. This he seized by the stock, and began to knock about, as though to discover wherein its virtue consisted, when the soldier could not forbear putting forth one hand to recover his weapon. The bear immediately seized him by the back of the head, and tore his scalp over his crown, so that it fell over the soldier's face. Notwithstanding his agony, the poor fellow restrained his cries, and again pretended death. The bear laid himself upon his body, and thus remained, until some hunters coming up relieved him from this frightful situation. As the poor fellow rose, he threw back his scalp with his hand, as though it had been a peruke, and ran frantically toward them, exclaiming—"The bear! the bear!" So intense was his apprehension of his enemy, that it made him oblivious of his bodily anguish. He eventually recovered, and received his discharge in consequence of his loss of hair. There is another bear-story in this work, which savors—just a little—of romance. A powerful bull was attacked by a bear in a forest, when the bull succeeded in striking both horns into his assailant, and pinning him to a tree. In this situation they were both found dead—the bear, of his wounds; the bull (either fearing, or, from obstinate self-will, refusing, to relinquish his position of advantage) of starvation!
The beat cat-and-mouse story (designated "Melancholy Accident—a Cat killed by a Mouse") is to be found in "The Poor Artist," the author of which seems to have derived the story from a somewhat questionable source, though we must admit the possibility. "A cat had caught a mouse on a lawn, and let it go again, in her cruel way, in order to play with it; when the mouse, inspired by despair, and seeing only one hole possible to escape into—namely, the round red throat of the cat, very visible through her open mouth—took a bold spring into her jaws, just escaping between her teeth, and into her throat he struggled and stuffed himself; and so the cat was suffocated." It reads plausibly; let us imagine it was true.
The best spider-and-fly story we also take from the last-named book. "A very strong, loud, blustering fellow of a blue-bottle fly bounced accidentally into a spider's web. Down ran the old spider, and threw her long arms round his neck; but he fought, and struggled, and blew his drone, and fuzzed, and sung sharp, and beat, and battered, and tore the web in holes—and so got loose. The spider would not let go her hold round him—and the fly flew away with the spider!" This is related on the authority of Mr. Thomas Bell, the naturalist, who witnessed the heroic act.
A MISER'S LIFE AND DEATH.
This is Harrow Weal Common; and a lovely spot it is. Time was when the whole extent lay waste, or rather covered with soft herbage and wild flowers, where the bee sought her pasture, and the lark loved to hide her nest. But since then, cultivation has trenched on much of Harrow Weal. Cottages have risen, and small homesteads tell of security and abundance. It is pleasant to look upon them from this rising ground; to follow the windings of the broad stream, with pastures on either side, where sheep and cattle graze. Look narrowly toward yonder group of trees, and that slight elevation of the ground covered with wild chamomile; if the narrator who told concerning the miser of Harrow Weal Common has marked the spot aright, that mound and flowers are associated with the history of one whose profitless life affords a striking instance of the withering effects of avarice.
On that spot stood the house of Daniel Dancer; miserable in the fullest conception of the word: desolate and friendless, for no bright fire gleamed in winter on the old man's hearthstone; nor yet in spring, when all nature is redolent of bliss, did the confiding sparrow build her nest beside his thatch. The walls of his solitary dwelling were old and lichen-dotted; ferns sprung from out their fissures, and creeping ivy twined through the shattered window-panes. A sapling, no one knew how, had vegetated in the kitchen; its broken pavement afforded a free passage, and, as time went on, the sapling acquired strength, pushing its tall head through the damp and mouldering ceiling; then, catching more of air and light, it went upward to the roof, and, finding that the tiles were off and part of the rafters broken, that same tree looked forth in its youth and vigor, throwing its branches wide, and serving, as years passed on, to shelter the inmates of the hut.
Other trees grew round; unpruned and thickly-tangled rank grass sprang up wherever the warm sunbeams found an entrance; and as far as the eye could reach, appeared a wilderness of docks and brambles, with huge plantains and giant thistles, inclosed with a boundary hedge of such amazing height as wholly to exclude all further prospect.
Eighty acres of good land belonged to Dancer's farm. An ample stream once held its winding course among them, but becoming choked at the further end with weeds and fallen leaves, and branches broken by the wind, it spread into a marsh, tenanted alike by the slow, creeping blind-worm, and water-newt, the black slug, and frogs of portentous size. The soil was rich, and would have yielded abundantly; the timber, too, was valuable, for some of the finest oaks, perhaps, in the kingdom grew upon the farm; but the cultivation of the one, and the culling of the other, was attended with expense, and both were consequently left uncared for.