prey, or only satisfy a ravenous appetite; and
inquires whether the owl, who swallows a
mouse whole, tastes him in his stomach. We
feel disposed to put a similar query, as to
whether the serpent in the Zoological Gardens
who recently bolted his bedding, derived any
gastric pleasure during, or after, the
performance.

A flock of crows have their sentinel, who
watches, as an outpost, and gives notice by a
watch-cry of the approach of danger; so have
linnets, so have blackbirds, so have choughs,
so have gulls, so has a herd of deer, so
have many other creatures. Whether by
the acuteness of their sight, or smell, or
hearing, it is quite clear that they know
very well what they are about. All things
considered, we must admit that our dumb
friends and fellow inhabitants of the earth
are only dumb in respect to one sort of
language, but that they have " a mother-
tongue " of their own, which answers all their
purposes. The ingenious young gentleman
who slits the tongue of a magpie, and says,
"Now he can talk! " has a very exaggerated
estimate of his own educational powers.
Nature did far more for the magpie in the
way of language before he left the parental
nest.

A SENTIMENT IN STONE.

IF Patience ever sits at all upon a monument,
the monument of her choice must be,
without doubt, the Cathedral of Cologne.
When finished—it was begun some half-
dozen centuries ago—this building is to be
the gem of the world's architecture; it is a
gem which takes as much time as the diamond
is said to need, before it crystallises finally
into its perfect shape.

Everybody knows that the great shrine at
Cologne is that of the Three Kings, who, after
they had been to Bethlehem, trotted about
Europe, and left their bones—patron-saints
of voyagers—at Milan. Yes, undoubtedly, I
mean that the bones were the saints; and let
no sceptic suggest that these bones, which
Barbarossa took from Milan to Cologne, might
possibly have belonged, when there was life-
blood flowing over them, to some Brown,
Robinson, and Jones, among the ancients.
For being the bones of Albuphar, Balthazar,
and Melchior, all Christendom revered the
sacred relics in Cologne. The sanctification
of the Imperial title, and the unity of Germany,
were connected with the possession of those
skeletons; and out of this sentiment arose the
wish to build over their shrine a great Cathedral,
worthy of the Empire which they
blessed. People, Prince, Emperor, rivalled
each other in the richness of their offerings
before the shrine of the Three Kings, in that
old time when Angebert, the Bishop of
Cologne, first planned the splendid edifice
which is not yet complete. It was to be a
sign and token of the sentiment of German
unity. There is a fitness, therefore, in its
incomplete form, and in the despair with
which we are looking forward to the very
distant time, when the last stone shall be laid
upon it, in fulfilment of the first magnificent
idea.

Enter the front portal under the famous
crane; turn to the left, and you come to an
enclosed square, about which are scattered,
ready hewn and carved, and numbered in
accordance with their places up aloft, the
stones which yearly add to the slow growth
of the Cathedral. This is the school, to which
there have descended few traditions of its
bygone masters and disciples. Those old artists
perched themselves on high, and carved the
stones in situ, and would perhaps have been
indignant at the trouble-saving temper of the
present day. The stone now chiselled in the
school, is from a quarry near the Drachenfels,
the very same quarry which furnished stone
for the foundations of the edifice. The lumps
of rock are broken off from one spot by the
Rhine, and carried down in boats, to be again
landed after no long voyage, and pieced
together in the new form of the most
magnificent of Christian temples. It is curious to
observe from the summit of the Drachenfels,
how large a piece of mountain has been taken
by the quarry-men, and sent to build up the
Cathedral of Cologne. The cutting into
shape of such a building creates a vast
quantity of chips, and costs also a pretty
pyramid of gold and silver. In all the
Universities—at Bonn, at Breslau, at Tübingen,
at Trier, at Braunsberg, at Giessen, at Pelplin,
at Münster, at Posen, at Paderborn, at
Dillingen, at Hildesheim, at Kremsminster, at
Rostock, at Brixen, at Freiburg in Brisgau,
at Luxemburg—in every state of Germany
there exist organised associations (Dom-bau-
Vereine) to raise funds for the slow
continuance towards completion of the building
of the great Cathedral, Innumerable small
societies in aid of these (the Hülf-Vereine)
exist and increase through every nook and
corner of the land. The revolution of 1848
vastly reduced the resources of these Cathedral-
clubs. Though they had produced in
the year 1842 fifty thousand thalers (seven
thousand five hundred pounds); in the year
1849, while the number of associations had
increased, eighteen thousand two hundred and
fifty-four thalers was their only produce.
The Cathedral, in addition to these sources of
support, is aided in its progress by an annual
grant of fifty thousand thalers from the King
of Prussia, and by presents, among which we
may call to mind the splendid painted windows
given by the late King of Bavaria.

The efforts made from the beginning to
raise funds for the great work—the great
symbol of German unity, as it was called only
a few years since by the King of Prussia,
when he visited Cologne—were not very
dissimilar to those made in the present day. Of
the building itself the history, in brief, is this.