Verved am I now to bear the worst in store, The beauty of these sufferings, my foes And into thy fond breast calmly my thoughts I Know not. In bonds, a slavish fear they would pour. O my sweet Gigia! I'm prepared for all This burning heart, that struggling to get loose I shall die, certain that my blood will prove My dying breath to Heaven in prayers I'll send, disclose. But shall I be condemned to death ?-The worst I may look for. I know th' Authorities Seek an example, and me as the first; For that my name is odious in their eyes. Now while they ponder my delinquencies, Perplexed 'mid thousand doubts and terrors, I Stand calm, prepared for all they can devise; I tremble not-I trust in the Most High; They ought to tremble, who his laws can thus defy. Shall I―a fate far crueller than death, My Gigia!-God reads the soul he gave, He knows that of myself no strength I have: My strength is from Him-it is of His might That I can thus the horrors round me brave. quicker beats my heart, no tear-drop dims my See! I am calm, with steady hand I write, sight. Even if my death should chance upon the gallows-No tree. THE DINORNIS, OR MOA. BY MRS. LEE. Several bones, and fragments of bones, reached England in the year 1843, from the northernmost island of the groupe called New Zealand, said to be those of a large bird, whose native name was Moa. They were not fossilized, and retained much of their animal matter; although they had evidently been long buried beneath the mud, or sand, of the rivers on whose banks they were found. Professor Owen's inspection of them at once confirmed the statement that they were those of birds; and, moreover, decided, that those birds had been of the Struthious or Ostrich kind, but of a sluggish and clumsy nature, perhaps nearly allied to the extinct bird of the Mauritius, known under the name of the Dodo; also to the Cassowary, and the Emu. To this tribe Mr. Owen has given the generic name of Dinornis; a combination from the Greek words, signifying surprising and bird. The locality where the bones are found, is that of streams which rise in neighbouring mountains; and the size of one of the largest thigh bones gave rise to a report, that its owner had been sixteen feet high; but this was an exaggeration. Mr. Williams, the Church Missionary, collected a great number, chiefly those of the back, neck, and legs. He forwarded them to Dr. Buckland, and at the same time wrote, that several traditions existed concerning this enormous bird, some of which asserted that it was still alive, although extremely rare; that it lived in a cave, on the side of a hill, and was guarded by a reptile, resembling a lizard. An American assured Mr. Williams that he had also received a native report, stating that two Englishmen, belonging to a whaler, went ashore to see, and try to shoot the Moa. They stationed themselves by the hill at Cloudy Bay; but when the monster appeared, they were too frightened to attempt to kill it, and stood gazing at it till it strode away. Mr. Williams offered a large sum to any one who would catch this bird, or its protector; but the only result of this offer was, the bones, to which allusion has already been made. An increased importation of remains has enabled Professor Owen to ascertain, that the Dinornis had three toes, and in many respects resembled the much smaller nocturnal bird, the Apteryx; of which a living specimen has been sent to the Zoological Society from New Zealand: the long, slender bill of the latter, and a small fourth toe, being the exceptions to the general resemblance. It also appears that there were seven species of Dinornis, the largest of which, the Dinornis giganteus, stood ten feet six inches high, instead of sixteen. It may seem strange to the uninitiated, that the structure of bones should enable the ob server to tell whether the bird to which they belonged could fly or not; but the secret lies in the presence or absence of air-cells. In birds of flight these cells are so numerous and large, that not only is the weight of the bones lessened by them, but the whole bird becomes aerated. In those which do not fly, they are but little de veloped, or are wholly wanting; and it was by a knowledge of this, that Mr. Owen was enabled to pronounce so decidedly on the habits of the Dinornis. If it had even the minute and rudimentary vestiges of wings which occur in the Apteryx, they have been probably lost among the larger bones, but as yet no traces of them have ap peared, thus agreeing with the established characters of wingless birds. The skull has, after much delay, reached England, and is remarkable for its width, and flatness at the back. A perplexing question has been solved by the discovery of the Dinornis, for it has removed the doubts entertained by naturalists concerning the fossil footprints found in the New Red Sandstone of Connecticut, by Professor Hitchcock. The extent of the stride was such, that no one dared to attribute them to a bird; and yet they could not be referred to any other animal. The size of the Dinornis giganteus has now given the explanation. No animal of the class Mammalia is known to have been indigenous to New Zealand, and this gigantic bird must have been sovereign of the soil, until man came to supersede and destroy it. It would perhaps be scarcely wise to admit, on the imperfect evidence which we possess, that it has lived during the period occupied by the present generation; but there can be little doubt, that the first Polynesian colony which established itself in New Zealand found it i existence. Its rapid disappearance since then, may be accounted for by its having been the only large animal on the island which afforded the pleasures of the chase, or substantial, fleshy food. Mr. Owen suggests, with reason, the probability that the anthropophagous practices of the New Zealanders succeeded to its extir pation. With regard to the plumage of the Dinornis, no guess can be made as to its colour or texture but the same acute observer, who has so aby opened its history to us, suggests, that as the present natives are fond of decorating their ma tles with the feathers of the Apteryx, they have probably derived the custom from their ances tors; and it is possible that a cloak, which hat descended from father to son, may yet rema to show the outer covering of the Dinornis and it is well worth while to seek it among New Zealanders. If we throw a glance over those birds which have imperfect wings, or have none at all, we shall find that those whose powers of movement are least restricted, have the widest range. The Ostrich, for instance, whose wings assist it in running, inhabits Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the further confines of Arabia; the Rhea wanders over the larger portion of South America; the Cassowary is limited to a few islands in the Indian Seas; the Dodo probably never went further than the Mauritius and Rodriguez; while the Dinornis and Apteryx were, and are, confined to New Zealand. As the Dinornis had none of the attributes of a bird of prey, as the country which it inhabited presented no food for such, and as we cannot suppose that so large a creature could subsist on worms and insects, like the smaller Apteryx, we turn to the Flora of New Zealand as the source whence it derived its subsistence. The principal feature of this is a number of Ferns, the highly nutritious and farinaceous underground stems of which probably supplied meals for the Dinornis; a conjecture which is confirmed by the enormous strength and development of the vertebræ of the neck, which enabled it to pluck these stems from the soil; while the immense power of its legs served for scratching and scattering away from them all the obstructions presented by the ground in which they grew. Thus they, like all the rest of God's creatures, show the beautiful adaptation of His works to the purposes for which they were created. A WIF E. On the strength of a college friendship, my newly-married crony, Mark Thornton, asked me to spend the first month of the shooting season at his seat of Wellsmere Manor. I accepted the invitation, and my present sketch relates to circumstances which happened during the visit. I must premise that I mean to eschew all mention of single or double barrels, of pointers or spaniels, of wonderful shots, and, in short, of all that has reference to the ostensible purpose of my visit. I am not essentially of a sporting turn of mind; and there are so many of the storywriters of the present day who enter into the topic with such manifest gusto, that I think my readers will not regret my determination. On my arrival, I found several guests already at the Manor House, and more came daily, until the dinner-table was slightly crowded, and the draving-room presented a tolerable muster in the evening. There was no lack of sleepingrooms, however. The upper story of the house was a perfect labyrinth, in which it was an every-day occurrence for some one or other of the guests to lose himself. Indeed, accidents of this kind happened so often, that my host seriously talked of having the doors numbered, as at an hotel: and it would have been a good plan. I had not seen the bride before, but I liked her at once. She was one of those sparkling, fascinating little brunettes, who are always saying piquant things-or things which appear so from the way in which they are said. She was invariably good-humoured and agreeable with everybody; and beneath her brilliant and mobile exterior, there was a vein of true-knit feel ing. A sister of hers, with her husband (who had been in the army, but had lately retired), was at Wellsmere. Between this sister and Mrs. Thornton there was the most complete contrast. I do not mean in person-though Mrs. Fairfax was the taller and finer woman of the two-but in manner. Mrs. Fairfax was as cold and constrained as her sister was volatile. At times she was perfectly repulsive. She was very beautiful: she had the most magnificent eyes I have ever seen-dark, shy, and wild; but there was an habitual expressionțin them which it would puzzle me to describe; I used to think they were like the eyes of a person whom some extraordinary grief has deprived of the power of shedding tears. Her husband was a most agreeable man, and a brilliant conversationist: whatever subject was started, he had always something to say exactly to the point, something which everybody else had been thinking, but which no one could have put into words. His wit was poignant and original. He seemed to have a power of touching some universal chord, which thrilled in every breast, and which answered instantaneously to his master-hand. He had a fine voice too, and sang well. With these accomplishments, it may be supposed that he was a general favourite. Men and women liked him equally; and his fascination was so great, that he even escaped envy. He seemed to take a strong liking to me from the time of our introduction. He frankly asked me not to be an acquaintance, but a friend; and a day never passed but I spent a great part of it alone with him. There was one circumstance which I soon discovered, and which before long became so evident to the general circle that it was a subject of constant remark-this was, that Mrs. Fairfax was never easy when her husband was out of her sight. She watched him so continually, that I believe the only time throughout the day that he was relieved from her incessant vigilance, was when the ladies left us after dinner for the drawing-room. I thought I could perceive that he was somewhat bored by his wife's constant surveillance; but he endured it all with exemplary patience, and I never heard him give her one angry or peevish word. I was at a loss to what to ascribe Mrs. Fairfax's watchfulness; but I at length set it down to jealousy, the more especially as there was a young lady in our company who could not exist save in an atmosphere of flirtation, and who, when single gentlemen | amount of game which he bagged, it would be were not in the way, would coquet most charm- considered incredible. ingly with married men. Mrs. Thornton would often jest with her on the subject; but although she joined in the laugh, the mention of this peculiarity seemed always to make her nervous and uncomfortable, and she invariably disclaimed any knowledge of watching her husband. I think it was about a week after my arrival, when one morning at. the breakfast-table Fairfax declared his resolution of joining the shootingparty that day. He had never been out with us before-somewhat to my surprise; for I had gathered from his conversation that he was an experienced sportsman. As he made the announcement, my eyes were unconsciously directed towards his wife. She turned deadly pale, and for a moment I thought she would have fainted. No one observed her change of countenance except myself; and her face so soon resumed its ordinary hue and expression, that I did not think much of the circumstance. After a moment or two, she said, addressing her husband, "Reginald, I want you to ride with me to-day." He replied abruptly that he could not, for he had just completed arrangements for joining the sportsmen that morning. There the matter dropped until breakfast was over; and the lady's demeanour remained as cold and impassive as usual. We had risen from the table, and I was standing looking from the window, when I was suddenly startled by an exclamation uttered with so much intensity, that I hurried hastily round. At a little distance Mrs. Fairfax was standing with her husband. She wrung both his hands in hers as she said, "For God's sake, Reginald, do not go!" There was such an agony of supplication in the tones, that I was startled out of all propriety, and remained gazing on the pair till Fairfax perceived me. With his customary adroitness he addressed me at once, and, in a strain of lively badinage, begged me to assist in allaying his wife's fears. She had, he said, an invincible antipathy to gunpowder in fact, that it was this very antipathy of hers which had caused him to sell out of the army. She also turned to me, and confessed, with a wan, painful smile, that she had an absolute dread of fire-arms. I do not know why, but I felt excessively uncomfortable; I could not believe that those tones of intense agony could spring from the mere pretty affected fear of a woman. However, her supplication had no effect on her husband: he joined the party of sportsmen, and during the whole morning-I being one of the number-he was almost constantly at my side. He was more amusing than ever: he kept up a continual flow of brilliant conversation, replete with bon-mot and anecdote; and at our pic-nic luncheon his sallies were so irresistible, that the merriment of our party became almost uproarious, and even the stolid game-keeper's boy relaxed into a broad grin. As to his morning's work, it was something wonderful were I to reckon up the We returned to the Manor House to a late dinner-all of us, except him, more or less fatigued; but he was more lively than usual. Mrs. Fairfax, that evening, for once aroused herself into sociality. I talked with her for some time, and was surprised to find that she could be agreeable. She had much of the vivacity of her sister, though it appeared slightly forced; and there was a pervading tone of bitterness in her style of thought, which betrayed itself in a quick reply or a sudden repartee. It seemed to me that she wished to remove any impression which the incident of the morning might have left upon my mind. She did not, however, succeed: the thrilling tone of her voice, the wringing of her husband's hands, her whole attitude, haunted me; and I was before long an unintentional witness of another scene which indelibly enfixed both itself and the former one upon my memory. I have said that the upper part of the Manor House was of a most rambling and labyrinthine description. My chamber was situated in a long narrow gallery which communicated with the chief flight of stairs through four if not five tortuous passages. I had hitherto managed to thread these mazes with tolerable accuracy, and, to say truth, rather plumed myself on my know ledge of localities, when one forenoon, having occasion to seek my room for some article or other which I wanted, I did not take time enough to consider my plan of operations, and suddenly became aware of the unpleasant fact that I was lost. After wandering blindly for some moments in the strangest places which the imagina tion of man can conceive, I emerged into a gal lery which was the counterpart of that in which my room was situated. There was one door which bore exactly the features of my own, and which I at once proceeded to, and opened. The first object which caught my sight was Mrs. Fairfax, kneeling by the bedside, her hands clasped, her pale face upturned, her dry-strained eyes full of an expression of the most unutterable agony. She was as still and as silent as marble. The whole figure betrayed the most total abandonment to despair. I caught but a single glimpse of her before I retired, and yet to this day I have a more vivid remembrance of that upturned face than of anything which I have seen through my whole life. By some means! found my way to my own room, and I stayed there for some time before I descended. When I re-entered the drawing-room, I found Mrs. Fairfax seated at her embroidery, with her usual cold, constrained demeanour." It was evident she had not noticed my entrance into her cham ber, and it need scarcely be said that I offered no apologies. I saw plainly there was some mystery about the lady which I racked my brain vainly to discover. The circumstances I have related so worked upon my imagination, that I became nervous and uneasy, until I seemed to be under some horrible fascination. I was seated one evening téte-à-tête with Mrs. Thornton (we had now, perhaps through my long friendship with her insband, become great friends), when she said, "I cannot think what is the matter with Clara." She alluded to her sister, who was sitting alone at some distance, gazing at her husband, who stood talking to a lady more in our neighbourhood. "Have you observed anything peculiar in her manner?" she continued. I was at a loss how to answer; so, as is not unusual, I believe, on such occasions, I descended to a compliment, and murmured, "All ladies cannot be Lady Adelines; there must be some Aurora Haly's, if only for the contrast." She went on with the topic, and I found that she was really uneasy about her sister. She said she was so different to what she had ever been before; that she used to be as mobile and vivacious as she Was now cold and impassive. She seemed antions to know whether I had observed any peculiarity about Mrs. Fairfax, hoping, I thought, to find that there was nothing strange in her sister to one who had not known her before, although the change was sufficiently evident to herself. I answered vaguely; but I think she perceived that I was uneasy on the subject, and that I did not speak what I thought. During our conversation, Mr. Fairfax had joined us unobserved. With anxiety depicted on his face, he came and seated himself between us, saying, with a sorrowful smile, "You must admit me into your consultation. I think that I am at least as much interested in it as you." Then turning to Mrs. Thornton, he frankly owned that he had overheard part of what we had been saying. I arose, that I might leave them together; but he laid his hand upon my arm, and begged me to resume my seat. "I can trust my friend," he said, even on so delicate a topic as this." He went on to say, that the melancholy of his wife was a subject of much concern to himself, and that he was glad of the opportunity of opening his heart to those who could feel with him. All that he said I cannot now remember; but, notwithstanding he emphatically declared that he believed she was suffering from nothing but nervous debility, he left a strong impression on my mind that Mrs. Fairfax was deranged. Questionable as might be the delicacy of entering on such a subject before a comparative stranger like myself, yet there was 80 much true manly feeling in all he uttered, and his face betrayed so earnest a sorrow, that I felt nothing but commiseration and respect. He concluded by saying that he was convinced his wife required further change of scene, and declared his sudden resolution of starting the next day for the Continent. 66 The next day he and his wife departed; and as it is only of them that I write, I will chronicle none of the events which happened during the remainder of my stay at Wellesmere Manor. About three years after, I received a communication from Thornton, which elucidated all the mysteries that had made me so uncomfortable. He told me that Mr. Fairfax-the brilliant, the gay, the agreeable-was immured in a private lunatic asylum, and was raving mad. He told me, too, what his heroic wife had at length confessed-how, knowing his terrible malady, she had, for years, lived on, expecting hourly some appalling tragedy, and with a superhuman strength of purpose had kept her dreadful secret to the last. It was not she who made the disclosure. By a frantic attempt on his own life, he revealed what he had so successfully laboured to hide for so long. I do not mean to deny the terrible risk, both as to herself and all others, which Mrs. Fairfax incurred; but still I cannot help admiring so determined a heroism. Many women have performed great deeds of valour on the impulse of the moment; but in very few will you find anything approaching to the calm endurance and quiet fortitude of Mrs. Fairfax. A SUMMER SONG. Sweet Summer cometh, Fan the glad earth; Wood-minstrels chanting Nature's new birth! Beauty hath crown'd her Goddess of Love; Fragrance floats round her, Light glows above! Summer is fading, RAWDON. Mournful winds blow; And her bright dew-drops Life wears a signet, Graven with " Change!" There is a Summer Death cannot blight; Earth hath no glory Riv'lling its light; There life's lost jewels Flash from the "thrones;" There Love's hush'd harp-notes Wake their sweet tones; And there fair blossomsHope sheds the whileFind their fruition Beneath Heaven's smile! E. L. |