0056E'S LETTERS FROM ALABAMA..

Tama last in order of publication these letters are among the earliest of the author's works, having been written when he kept a school for seven or eight months in the hilly region of the State of Alabama—a region visited by few Europeans. and only seen by • Letters from Alabama S U.S.', chiefly relating to Natural History. By Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S. Published by Morgan and Chase. them from the inside of a stage-coach or the deck of a river steamer. Mr. Gosse's acquaintance with it was made under cir- cumstances peculiarly favourable to his pursuits as a naturalist. The aspect of nature presented to him much that was novel and beautiful, and as he had previously resided in Canada, the many contrasts between the southern land and that which he had just quitted must have greatly quickened his perceptions and his con- sequent enjoyment. Moreover, his professional duties were by no means laborious; his pupils, instead of being his natural enemies, were as keenly entered on the varmint as Dandie Dinmont's ter- rier, and helped him with glee in the chase of the smallest deer ; and the question of ways and means, which frets the anxious souls of English schoolmasters, never ruffled his serenity, for it concerned others, not him. Schools in the Southern States are seldom private enterprises, but belong to the proprietary class,

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which is considered so eminently genteel in the old country, the expenses being defrayed in certain stipulated proportions by some half-dozen planters of influence, who constitute themselves a board of trustees, and engage a master at a fixed salary. Under such an arrangement Mr. Gosse undertook, at a liberal remunera- tion the charge of about a dozen young ideas; and this is the picture he gives of his woodland academy. "My schoolroom is a funny little place, built wholly of round, unhewn logs, notched at the ends to receive each other, and the interstices filled with clay ; there is not a window, but, as the clay has become dry, it has dropped or been punched out of many of these crevices, so that there is no want of light and air, and the door, hung on wooden hinges, and furnished with a wooden latch, scarce needs the latter, for it remains open by night as well as day. The desks are merely boards, split, not sawn, out of pine logs, un- hewn and unpinned, which slope from the walls, and are supported by brackets. The forms are split logs, with four diverging legs from the round side, the upper side being made tolerably straight with the axe. Some wooden pegs, driven into auger holes in the logs, receive hats, 8:c. A neat little desk, at which I write, and a chair on which I sit, are the only ex- ceptions to the primitive rudeness of all our furniture, and the pupils are mostly, as rude as the house —real young hunters, who handle the long rifle with more ease and dexterity than the goose-quill, and who are in- comparably. more at home twisting a rabbit,' or ' treeing a 'possum,' than in conjugating a verb. But more of them when I get better acquainted with them. The situation of the school is singularly romantic ; a space of about a hundred yards square has been cleared in the forest, with the ex- ception of two or three lofty oaks which are left for shade. On every side we are shut in by a dense wall of towering forest trees, rising to the height of a hundred feet or more. Oaks, hickories, and pines of different species extend for miles on every hand, for this little cleanng is made two or three miles from any human habitation, with the exception of one house about three quarters of a mile distant. Its loneliness, however, is no objection with me, as it necessarily throws me more into the presence of free and wild nature. At one corner a narrow bridle-path leads out of this ' yard,' and winds through the sombre forest to the distant high road. A nice spring, cool in the hottest day of summer, rises in another corner, and is protected and accumulated by being inclosed in four sides of a box, over the edges of which the superfluous water escapes, and, running off in a gurglin,g brook, is lost in the shade of the woods. To this lodge in the vast wildeniess,' this ' boundless contiguity of shade,' I wend my way every morning, rising to an early breakfast, and arriving in time to open school by eight o'clock.

"Such a morning walk in such a clime, at such a season, you may easily imagine is not performed without multitudes of objects to catch the eye and delight the mind of an observant naturalist. A cloudy day seems to be al- most an anomaly ; and, even by the time the sun is two hours high, his rays i are oppressively hot, scorching one's back and head like a fire ; yet there is a freshness in the morning air in the woods, while the dews are exhaling, which is delightfully pleasant. Many birds which, during the heat of the day, are sitting among the thick branches of the piny woods,' with open beaks, as if panting for breath, are at this early hour busily hopping about the fences and roads, and trilling forth their sweet melody."

When we join the schoolmaster in his rambles the whole fauna and flora of the district come in review before us, and many cu- rious facts are disclosed and inquiries suggested. Why has the goose, a prudent and intelligent bird, been chosen for an emblem of folly ? We believe it is only by those who speak the English tongue that the creature is thus maligned, though the Germans, Italians, and others notice its loquacity in their popular sayings. The character which we have given to the goose is in France as- signed to the turkey, and apparently with more justice. In America wild turkeys are caught by a very simple kind of trap called a pen.

"It consists of an inclosure about ten feet square, made with rails resting on each other at the corners, covered in also by rails. A hole or passage is dug, leading from some distance outside to the midst of the pen, under the bottom rail, the part next the rails, within the pen, being covered with a board, or with sticks. Corn is then scattered around the hole and within the pen : the turkeys follow the corn, eating as they go, until they get into the pen; when finding themselves inclosed, they endeavour to get out, running , round and round, looking for an opening above but are so stupid that they never think of getting out at the hole by which they got in, but remain i

there, until the hunter comes, who goes in and knocks them on the head. Many are sometimes taken at once in this way."

Mr. Gosse's neighbourhood abounded in lizards, pretty and harmless, though to one of them (agama undulate) has been given the formidable name of scorpion. The sassafras is the favourite resort of another, the green anolis (anolis bularis) of a bright pale-green colour, of about five inches in length, of which two- thirds at least are tail.

" I had been inclined to consider the changes of colour attributed to some lizards a gross exaggeration, if not a mere fable : but I had recently the satisfaction of witnessing acliange of this sort in the present species. The children had been chasing a little lizard about the logs of which the school- house is built, for some tune; but it manifested great cunning and agility in avoiding them, creeping through the many crevices between the logs, being sometimes in the school and sometimes on the outside ; they at length caught it, however, and brought it to me. It was all over of a brownish-black hue, except a line down the back, which was pale dusky. One of the lads told me that it was the little green tree-lizard, which had become black from being on the dark logs, and that it would turn green again if placed on a leaf. This I could not at all believe, though it certainly corresponded with that species in size, shape, and general appearance. But as it was easy to

put it to the test of experiment, I let the lizard hop upon a small solitary plant in the sunshine, bidding some of the children watch it, without dis- turbing it. They soon brought it to me again, telling me that it was changing; and upon looking at it, I could distinctly perceive a tinge of green upon the black. Still incredulous, however, and thinking it might possibly be fancy, I put it into my desk ,• and about half an hour after, on opening it, I was no less surprised than delighted to see the lizard of a biilliant light green, the line down the back blackish ; there was not the least hue of green in the black at first, nor was there any blackness in the green hue now ; the change was complete. I suppose the black colour was not caused by the animal's being on the dark logs, but was the effect of anger on being chased. When irritated, and also during other seasons of excitement, the skin of the throat is thrust forth,. by a peculiar mechanism, to a great extent ; this part then becomes of a bright crimson. The scales with which this lizard is clothed are very small, and scarcely observable. It is perfectly harmless, and is an elegant little creature, of very graceful and active motions, run- ning and leaping."

Of the muscular power of insects Mr. Gosse gives two remark- able instances. The first performer he mentions was the oryctea maimon, a three-horned beetle larger than any English species, though perhaps not so long as some specimens of the stag beetle.

" This insect has just astonished me by a proof of its vast strength of body. Everyone who has taken the common dorr in his hand knows that its limbs, if not remarkable for agility, are very powerful, but I was not prepared for so Samsonian a feat as I have just witnessed. When the insect was brought to me, having no box immediately at hand, I was at a loss where to put it until I could kill it ; but a quart bottle full of milk being on the table, I clapped the beetle for the present under that, the hollow at the bottom allowing him room to stand upright. Presently, to my surprise, the bottle began slowly to move and glide along the smooth table, propelled by the muscular power of the imprisoned insect, and continued for some time to perambulate the surface, to the astonishment of all who witnessed it. The weight of the bottle and its contents could not have been less than three pounds and a half, while that of the beetle was about half an ounce so that it readily moved a weight 112 times exceeding its own. A better notion than figures can convey will be obtained of this feat, by supposing a lad of fifteen to be imprisoned under the great bell of St. Paul's, which weighs 12,000 pounds ; and to move it to and fro upon a smooth pavement by pushing within."

The other insect athlete was a large stout asilus (A. Polyphe- mus?) densely clothed with yellow hair.

" To my surprise, it carried one of the black pill-chafers (coprobius vol- vens) in its mouth, and flew with apparent ease notwithstanding its bur- den ; an effort of strength which I should think, considering the relative size and weight of the two insects, truly herculean, and far beyond that so often quoted of a lion carrying off a youug bullock ; the insect was flying, not crawling. I have since observed this powerful and predacious fly carrying insects heavier than itself on several occasions, and so well are its instincts recognized that it has obtained the common name of the bee- catcher.' "

The fame of another American insect is due to its voice, or what in insects is equivalent to a voice. This is the katydid— not katedid as Mr. Gosse writes the name.

" The silence of night, which has become proverbial in other countries, in this is but a poetical fiction—at least in summer time. A large species of gryllus, called provincially the katedid (pterophylla concava), fills the air with its nightly music, such as it is. Multitudes of them lodge in the trees around us, and no sooner has evening waned into night than they tune up with their cracked notes, and keep up an incessant ringing during the whole night until morning dawns, when they all become silent. This sound has been heard but a few weeks, beginning not gradually, but as it were in all places at once, or nearly so, and bursting forth into full and vigorous chorus. This is, I suppose, to be accounted for by a very interesting and remark- able fact, that the majority of individuals of any particular species of insects attain the perfect state almost simultaneously, even to a degree of precision scarcely credible ; so that a brood seems suddenly to have started into existence, where not a single individual had been previously seen. The ringing crink of the orthopterous insects is made only by the perfected individual, being, it is believed, the sexual call of the male. I think it will give you a pretty correct notion of the tone and character of the particular concert in question, to fancy a score or two of people with

shrill voices, divided into pairs, each pair squabbling with each other I did !" You didn't !" I did ! " You didn't !' the objurgation maintained with the most amusing pertinacity, and without a moment's intermission, on every side of you. The performer is a large and handsome gryllus _of a bright green hue, somewhat resembling the great green grasshopper of Eng- land in size and general appearance, but the outer wings (hemelytra) are dilated and oval, and very convex externally, the pair taking nearly the form, when closed in a state of repose, of a blown bladder. The antennae are of uncommon length and slenderness ; but the most singular part of the conformation is the musical organs, which are situated one at the base of each hemelytron, and forming a part of it, which is turned at a right angle to the rest over the back, so that the one shall partly overlap the other. The organ consists of a hard glassy ridge in front, which, on being crossed by its fellow, creaks sharply, making the mink that is heard in the trees. There must, however, be three distinct but rapid crossings to make the whole sound represented by the word Katedid, which it can produce as

quickly as one can pronounce the word. Occasionally it gives but a single -impulse' which we may call uttering only one syllable of the word, but

usually the three are heard, then an interval of a second, and again the word, and so on. Behind this ridge there is a transparent membrane, which appears tightly stretched over a semi-circular rim, like the parchment of a drum, and which no doubt increases the sound by its vibrations."

Is Mr. Gosse acquainted with the pretty lines on the katydid by Oliver Wendell Holmes ? If not, he will be glad to see them here.

" I love to hear thine earnest voice,

Wherever thou art hid, Thou testy little dogmatist, Thou pretty Katydid ! Thou uundest me of gentlefolks,—

Old gentlefolks are they,—

Thou say'st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.

"Thou art a female, Katydid ! I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, So petulant and shrill. I think there is a knot of you Beneath the hollow tree,—

A knot of spinster Katydids,—

Do Katydids drink tea ? " 0 tell me where did Katy live, And what did Katy do ? And was she very fair and young, And yet so wicked, too ? Did Katy love a naughty man, Or kiss more cheeks than one ?

I warrant Katy did no more Than many a Kate has done.

" Dear me ! I'll tell you all about My fuss with little Jane, And Ann, with whom I used to walk So often down the lane, And all that tore their locks of black,

Or wet their eyes of blue,—

Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, What did poor Katy do ?"

" Ah no! the living oak shall crash, That stood for ages still, The rock shall rend its mossy base And thunder down the hill, Before the little Katydid Shall add one word, to tell The mystic story of the maid Whose name she knows so well.

" Peace to the ever-murmuring race ! And when the latest one Shall fold in death her feeble wings Beneath the Autumn sun, Then shall she raise her fainting voice And lift her drooping lid, And then the child of future years Shall hear what Katy did.'

The perusal of Mr. Gosse's book has beguiled the tedium of exile which we feel in common with all who are now immured in London. We envy those who will read it in grassy nooks or on the seaside shingles.