which he was favored with was sent from the Bermudas; and, as these islands abound with the cedar, it is highly probable that many of those birds pass from our continent thence, at the commencement of winter, to enjoy the mildness of that climate as well as their favorite food.

As the bluebird is so regularly seen in winter after the continuance of a few days of mild and open weather, it has given rise to various conjectures as to the place of his retreat; some supposing it to be in close, sheltered thickets lying to the sun; others the neighborhood of the sea, where the air is supposed to be more temperate, and where the matters thrown up by the waves furnish him with a constant and plentiful supply of food. Others trace him to the dark recesses of hollow trees and subterraneous caverns, where they suppose he dozes away the winter, making, like Robinson Crusoe, occasional reconnoitring excursions from his castle whenever the weather happens to be favorable. But amidst the snows and severities of winter I have sought for him in vain in the most favorable sheltered situations of the Middle States, and not only in the neighborhood of the sea, but on both sides of the mountains. I have never, indeed, explored the depths of caverns in search of him, because I would as soon expect to meet with tulips and butterflies there, as bluebirds; but among hundreds of woodmen, who have cut down trees of all sorts and at all seasons, I have never heard one instance of these birds being found so immured in winter; while in the whole of the Middle and Eastern States the same general observation seems to prevail, that the bluebird always makes his appearance in winter after a few days of mild and open weather. On the other hand, I have myself found them numerous in the woods of North and South Carolina in the depth of winter, and I have also been assured by different gentlemen of respectability,

who have resided in the islands of Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas and Bermudas, that this very bird is common there in winter. We also find, from the works of Hernandez, Piso, and others, that it is well known in Mexico, Guiana, and Brazil; and, if so, the place of its winter retreat is easily ascertained, without having recourse to all the trumpery of holes and caverns, torpidity, hibernation, and such ridiculous improbabilities.

Nothing is more common in Pennsylvania than to see large flocks of these birds, in spring and fall, passing at considerable heights in the air,-from the south in the former and from the north in the latter season. I have seen, in the month of October, about an hour after sunrise, ten or fifteen of them descend from a great height and settle on the top of a tall detached tree, appearing, from their silence and sedateness, to be strangers, and fatigued. After a pause of a few minutes, they began to dress and arrange their plumage, and continued so employed for ten or fifteen minutes more; then, on a few warning notes being given, perhaps by the leader of the party, the whole remounted to a vast height, steering in a direct line for the southwest. In passing along the chain of the Bahamas towards the West Indies, no great difficulty can occur, from the frequency of these islands; nor even to the Bermudas, which are said to be six hundred miles from the nearest part of the continent. This may seem an extraordinary flight for so small a bird; but it is nevertheless a fact that it is performed. If we suppose the bluebird in this case to fly only at the rate of a mile per minute, which is less than I have actually ascertained him to do overland, ten or eleven hours would be sufficient to accomplish the journey, besides the chances he would have of resting-places by the way, from the number of vessels that generally navigate those seas. In like manner, two

days at most, allowing for numerous stages for rest, would conduct him from the remotest regions of Mexico to any part of the Atlantic States. When the natural history of that part of the continent and its adjacent isles is better known, and the period at which its birds of passage arrive and depart are truly ascertained, I have no doubt but these suppositions will be fully corroborated.

A SOJOURN IN ARCADY.

ABBA G. WOOLSON.

[Abba Goold Woolson was born at Windham, Maine, in 1838. She has lectured on English literature, and is the author of "Woman in American Society," "Dress Reform," " Browsings among Books," etc. We offer a characteristic selection from the first-named of these works. Its vein of humor is an agreeable addition to the good sense with which the whole book is replete.]

WHEN the ornamental young lady leaves her city home to indulge for a while in the sweets of a country life, she is in a fair way to study one phase of American society hitherto unknown to her, and to learn from it a few prosaic truths. Poets and romancers have made her familiar with the scenery of their pastorals; and though she has no hope of finding the hill-sides of her new resort sprinkled with coy little shepherdesses, who sit with crooks and garlanded hats amid flocks of sleepy sheep, while lovesick swains blow oaten pipes at their feet, yet she does fancy that something not altogether alien to the pretty, idyllic existence that had got into books will be possible to her there.

After a few weeks she will realize that nowhere are the

hard, bare facts of material life so squarely faced as in our own country towns, where not only the beauty of poetry and art, but even the charms of Nature herself, find little or no recognition. She will learn, too, that between her own occupation and amusements and those of her country sisters there is scarcely more correspondence than if she had been born on the opposite side of the globe.

These thoughts could not but arise when my friend. Madge came in this morning to bid us good-by. She is off to-day for her summer campaign; this time neither to the sea-side, the Springs, nor the White Hills, but to an old-fashioned farm-house somewhere in Vermont. The town is charming and retired, she tells me; the house a roomy old mansion, neat and quiet, and embowered under great elms; and the family an independent farmer and wife, who never had a boarder before, and who consent to take her only as a favor. It promises a novel existence to this city maiden, who has spent her summer days among the crowds at fashionable watering-places; and she is enchanted at the prospect of so complete a change.

In a burst of friendly confidence, she declared herself sick of the world, this poor little nun, just turned of eighteen, and as fine a butterfly as one would wish to see. Great hotels have become to her stupid abodes, where there is nothing to be done, from morning till night, but to dress, and eat, and drift about the piazzas. Flirtingto which, I grieve to say, she is not averse-she asserts to be impossible in such places, for there is not a young man. to be met there nowadays, at least nobody worth killing. And so it is that she decides to turn her back upon all vain pomps and vanities, and betake herself to utter seclusion; though, in spite of her sighs, she intends, no doubt, to emerge in time for next winter's round of parties and balls.

You should have heard her rhapsodize so gloriously over the delights she is to find in this new retreat. Such feasting on fruits and berries and cream, such rambles through wood and meadow, such sound, refreshing slumber at night, and such siestas at noonday! One would think she was to live, like the butterflies, by sipping nectar from flower-cups and sleeping in the cool, rocking tents of the lilies. Especially was she rejoiced that she would not have to spend her days in dressing and adorning herself, as if there were a place where Madge would not do that! Were she to be cast away on a desert island, she could no more keep from braiding her crimps and looping up her overskirts in the latest style than a bird could keep from singing in a wilderness. Wherever she goes she must take her finery and her fashions. Trains of vaporous muslin will float over the sanded floors of that old farm-house, crisp, pale silks rustle in the rushbottomed chairs, and the prim front chamber be turned into a bewildered boudoir, with French gewgaws running riot over the tall bureau-tops, and bournous and Indian mantles littering the straight tables. Somewhere among the hay-makers will wander a jaunty hat and a scarlet cloak; for it is much to be feared lest this pretty charmer may seek to astound the natives with her gay adornments, and even to get up desperate flirtations with the farmers' sons, if only, like Lady Clara Vere de Vere, "to break a country heart for pastime, ere she goes to town."

Now that my friend is gone, and her pleasant laugh and merry stories will be heard no more for so many weeks, I fall to dreaming over all that she has said. She is a winsome little body, and one would fain believe that she is to walk straight into the lovely Arcady that she has pictured for herself. It would have been cruel to