parent, colourless jelly, apparently about the
size of a pea. It is called Amæba princeps,
otherwise Proteus (although the latter name has
been less appropriately given to the swan-necked
animalcule, quite a different creature), for shape
it has none. Its outline varies from second to
second. It has really no parts or organs; but
instead thereof it pushes out from its mass a
protuberance here, and draws in a hollow there.
The pea becomes a bean, or a boot, or a hand
with half a dozen gouty fingers; often, it
resembles some island you have seen in the map of
the Indian Archipelago. It progresses, gliding
slowly across the field of view, drawing in after
it its irregular protuberances as it goes. It
never, through carelessness, leaves any portion
of itself behind it. Its motion alone would not
entitle it to be considered an animal; for many
microscopic plants frisk about, or writhe and
twist, or slide along with far more energetic
movements. But the Proteus eats; note in
its substance sundry coloured morsels it has
swallowed; and now, on its way coming in
contact with a dainty bit, it annexes it—
enveloping it entirely in its own proper substance.
As the Proteus, when it chooses, can be
all limbs, so, when it requires, is it all stomach.
It eats, and is therefore an animal. It does not
feed indiscriminately, but lets some prey go, while
it appropriates others; therefore it has a will of
its own. Learned men tell us that the jelly of
which its bodily substance is composed, is
"sarcode." Sarcode is further capable of secreting
shells, many of great symmetry and beauty,
besides the substance known as sponge. The
portion of sarcode which sponges in their growing
and living state contain, constitutes their only
claim to belong to the animal kingdom. Indeed,
sponges begin life as solitary, naked Amœbae,
who club together to build themselves a skeleton
pro bono publico. Of course the sarcode,
of the consistence of white of egg, has
disappeared, long before sponge reaches our
washing-stands.

And is mighty Man acted on by the same
natural stimulus which awakens creatures who
are lower than the starfish and the worm? The
answer is read at once in the elastic step, the
brighter eye, the rosier cheek, the plump cherry
lip of youth. It is legible also in the fitful effort
with which elderly invalids gird up their loins to
perform the concluding stages of their journey of
life. Spenser tells us that over earthly things
mutability is the reigning power:

So forth issued the seasons of the year;
First, lusty Spring, all delight in leaves of flowers
That freshly budded, and new blossoms did bear
(In which a thousand birds had built their bow'rs
That sweetly sung to call forth paramours):
And in his hand a javelin he did bear,
And on his head (as fit for warlike Stours)
A gilt engraven morion he did wear;
That as some did him love, so others did him fear.

— With reason feared him, propitiating his
forbearance with periodical bleedings and doses of
medicine. Spring, who gives strength to the
strong, spreads snares for the feeble. By his
bright sunshine he tempts them to venture
prematurely out of their wearisome winter retreats,
perhaps even to cast aside their tried defensive
woollen armour; and then, with blast of his
cutting winds, or with the wet blanket of his
chilling fogs, or with his sharp artillery of hail
and sleet, he extinguishes the flickering flame of
life. May Hill is a hard climb for the wayworn,
the sickly, and the burdened with years. Before
reaching the top, many are they who lie down to
slumber by the roadside, unable to attain the
summit of the pass, and to make the gentle
descent into June.

Spring, therefore, is to many the close, as it is
to multitudes of living creatures the commencement
of their earthly existence. A year beginning
precisely at midnight, as soon as the sixtieth
minute past eleven P.M. of the thirty-first of
December is concluded, is chronologically convenient,
business-like, and exact; but the Roman
year, which allowed the dark inclement period to
pass before it ventured to step out of doors, is
far more natural and intelligible for amateurs.
What is the order of the seasons? Spring,
summer, autumn, winter. How run the signs of the
Zodiac? The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly
Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin, and the
Scales. The minute and the hour of the day in
March when the sun invades the territory of
Aries is the beginning of the year, according to
the Calendar of Nature, when a not very old
but nearly forgotten almanack tells us that the
republican months Pluviose and Ventose are
succeeded by Germinal and Floreal. So be it.
May this year's March and April showers be
plentifully followed by May flowers!

ABOARD THE CONSTELLATION.

"GOING for seventeen hundred dollars! a
shameful, aggravating sacrifice! No advance on
seventeen hundred dollars? Gentlemen, gentlemen,
be spry with your biddings, and don't let
such valuable property be sweepered out of the
U-nited States for a fractional splinter of its
worth! The splendid yacht Constellation,
with all her new stores and fixings, cabins
paneled with maple and mahogany, mirrors,
pictures, new sails as white as the President's best
table-napkins, masts as tough as a hickory
fishing-rod, going to be knocked down to a
foreign bidder for the ridiculous rate of
seventeen hundred dollars."

This fervid burst of oratory was uttered in
the Auction Mart of Buffalo city, on a broiling
August day; and the auctioneer stopped to
take breath, wiped his forehead, and kept the
ivory hammer still suspended in mid air.

There was a hum among the spectators—a
hum and a smothered laugh, but no effort to
avert the "sacrifice" so much deplored by the
man of sales. One Quaker flour-dealer remarked
that, had the craft possessed more stowage, he
might have made an offer; but that such tawdry
gimcracks were useless to a sober citizen.