this it is grievous to be informed that one of them was stoned to death (as was believed), and that at the end of a few months the survivor met with a similar fate. It is melancholy to reflect that there should be in the world envious and malignant people who mutter to themselves in this sort of spirit: "Ah! you 're a very great person, keeping Swans and so on! You think they look very grand sailing before your house! You're getting up very fast! Other people can't keep Swans, but other people are just as good as you. You think nobody can let you down a peg, do you? We'll see!" And next day the ornament of the neighbourhood is found mutilated or murdered.

It is needless to go through the list of fresh arrivals that were successively maltreated and destroyed, but we will hurry on to the last, a beautiful and majestic bird, of which, after a residence of four or five years, my informant writes, "for shame be it spoken, some villain broke his neck, and now (March 1848) there are none.

This last instance enables us to make a rough estimate of the cost of maintaining a pair of Swans. Those at Stratton had a quarter of a peck of oats a day in summer. But in less incommodious places, and where garden rubbish was supplied, two pecks a week would be a fair allowance for all the year round. This amounts to 6 coombs per annum. Take the oats at 15s. per coomb, as, if they are to be bought, the best are the cheapest, and the annual expense is 4l. 17s. 6d.- -a sum soon spent in cleaning an artificial lake by human labour. On the other hand, half a dozen Cygnets ought to be reared, and cannot be set down as worth less than 10s. each. Any farmer who has plenty of tail corn, will have no occasion to buy anything for them, as he can send a little of that to be ground for the Cygnets, and it will be better than heavier meal, that would not float so surely. But if the swankeeper be hospitably disposed, and choose to eat the Cygnets with his friends, instead of selling them to the dealers, the brood cannot very justly be brought over to the credit side of his cash account at least.

The learned have discovered a number of mysterious convolutions of the trachea in this genus, but it is doubtful whether all their researches have enabled them to match the subjoined amusing instance from the "Hortus Sanitatis," or "Garden of Health," a rare old book printed in 1491, and enriched by numerous illustrations, that are attributed to Albert Durer.

THE TURKEY.

"There is no poor animal so beset with ignorant and destructive empiricism, on its first introduction into life, as the Turkey."-A. W.

If we call to mind the many and valuable acquisitions, from both the animal and vegetable kingdom, which have been made subservient to the use of Man within comparatively a very recent period, it is not too much to believe that others, of nearly, or quite equal value, still remain to reward the labour and pains of a persevering search. There is the whole of central Africa, central Australia, great part of China and northern India (which have already afforded us so much), and innumerable half-explored or unexplored islands, all waiting to be ransacked for our benefit. And without depending on those distant regions, we know not yet what we may find at home; seeing that the delicious Seakale-an esculent whose merits are yet unknown to many a family of competent means living in retirement has only within the last few years sprung up under our very feet; and the Capercali, by an easy importation, has been rescued from extinction in Great Britain.

Amongst the living tributaries to the luxury of Man, the Turkey is an example of the results yet to be expected from the exploring spirit of our day. It is the most recent, and, except the Hen and the Goose, the most valuable of our domesticated birds. We may, indeed, call it quite a new introduction; for what, after all, is a period of three hundred years, compared with the time during which Man has had dominion over the earth and its brute inhabitants ? The obscurity which hangs over the transmission of the Turkey from America, and which there is little chance of clearing away, except by industrious ferreting amongst old family records and memorandum

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books, shows that those who brought it to the Old World had no idea of the value of what they were importing; but probably regarded it like any other remarkable production of nature-a Macaw or a Tortoise. The young would be distributed among friends with the same feeling that Golden Pheasants and such like are with us; these again would thrive and increase, and the nation would suddenly find itself in the possession of a race, not of pleasing pets, but of a valuable, prolific, and hardy stock of poultry. Such I take to be the history of the Turkey in England; and the Zoological and Ornithological Societies may hereafter find that some creature that was disregarded, or undervalued, or even yet unobtained, will prove unexpectedly domestic and profitable (it may be the Cereopsis, some of the Indian Polyplectrons, or the elegant Honduras Turkey); to further which great object of their association they cannot do better than communicate spare specimens, on the most liberal and encouraging terms, to such persons as they believe competent fairly to test their value.

The varieties of the domesticated Turkey are not very distinct. The most so is the Norfolk; the others may all be swept into what is called the Cambridge breed (thus including the Bustard breed and the Dutch coppercoloured), which, however, is as much cultivated in Norfolk as the old local stock, and birds of which kind often pass for true Norfolks, because they have been procured from that county. The real Norfolk Turkey is more hardy, but less ornamental than the others, and of smaller size. It is entirely black, except the red skin about the head, and a brownish tip to the feathers of the tail and some of those of the back. This gives the bird a rusty appearance, like an old piece of well-worn cotton-velvet. The Cambridge sort, when black, have a beautifully shining bluish tinge. like a well polished boot. The chicks of the Norfolks are black, with occasionally white patches about the head; those of the Cambridge variety are mottled all over with brownish grey, and are of taller and slenderer proportions.

The white individuals of either variety are accidental; this colour is scarcely permanent in their offspring; they are tender, not pleasing to every eye, and altogether not to be recommended. The plumage of the Cambridge breed varies very much; sometimes it is entirely made up of shades of reddish-brown and grey, when it is called the Bustard-breed; sometimes of grey, black, and white, but frequently it approaches very nearly to what we see figured as the wild bird. In the "Naturalist's Library,' the hen of the Wild Turkey, copied from Audubon, is represented with a hairy tuft like that of the cock hanging from her breast. I have not seen this in the tame variety. A hen in my possession that will be four years old next spring (1848) has no symptom of its appearance. But I am thus informed by one on whom I can depend. “You will not, I think, find the tuft of hair on the breast of the hen Turkey to be a matter of rare occurrence. I have one who shows it now, though she is not yet three years old."-A. W.

The reason why the Turkeys seen in our poultry yards do not vie in splendour of plumage with their untamed brethren, is that we do not let them live long enough. For the same cause we seldom witness the thorough development of their temper and disposition. A creature that does not attain its full growth till its fifth or sixth year, we kill at latest in the second, to the evident deterioration of our stock. But let three or four well selected Cambridge Turkeys be retained to their really adult state, and well fed meanwhile, and they will quite recompense their keeper by their beauty in full plumage, by their glancing hues of gilded green and purple, their lovely shades of brown, bronze, and black, and the pearly lustre that radiates from their polished feathers. In default of wild specimens, birds like these are sought to complete collections of stuffed birds.

The demand for such large birds among the fowldealers, and the temptation to fat them before they arrive at this stage, are so great, that few farmers' wives can