The bird of night, But they are certainly in many cases weird and hideous enough to justify popular opinion. The sudden harsh screech of the barn owl (which is probably the death-foretelling screech owl of popular tradition) is startling enough; but it is far surpassed by the performances of the Virginian eagle owl, whose voice sometimes resembles "the half-suppressed screams of a person being throttled," and the outcries of this bird's European congener, the common eagle owl, are at times no less uncanny. Similar, too, is the nocturnal melody of the Ceylonese devil bird, which, curiously enough, is a near ally of our own tawny owl, whose soft hooting is one of the pleasantest sounds emitted by this usually unmelodious tribe. But there are others in whose notes there is nought appalling-Shelley's "sad Aziola," for instance, and the small South American owl, which is said to take its stand on a bush in broad daylight, and utter a cry so alluring that small birds approach to listen, and become the prey of their charmer-a story which certainly needs confirmation. An Australian owl, too, has a cry so like that of our cuckoo as to have given rise to a popular saying that in that land of contraries the cuckoo sings by night. A scarcely more tuneful family is that of the other great group of nocturnal birds, the night-jars, and one of no better repute, as witness their common name of "goatsuckers," derived from an absurd idea, as old as the days of Aristotle, that they sucked the milk of goats. As a matter of fact, they are, like the owls, most useful birds, feeding entirely on insects, and those often of injurious kinds, such as cockchafers and moths. For the capture of these, their whole structure is beautifully adapted, the mouth being extremely wide, and the wings long and powerful; in fact, they resemble gigantic swallows, except that the tail is not usually forked. The bill and feet are small and feeble; the former being usually plentifully beset with bristles at the base, and the middle toe of the latter armed with a serrated claw. The eyes, like those of the owls, are large, and the plumage is also similar in its softness and sombre colouring, though the markings are even more delicate and beautiful. It sometimes assumes very strangeforms; the lyre-tailed night-jar possessing a lyre-shaped forked tail much longer than its body, and a still more remarkable species, the Leona night-jar, having in each wing a long feather-shaft, more than twice the length of the bird itself, and webbed only for a few inches at the tip. This ornament, perhaps the most peculiar possessed by any bird, is confined to the male; but, as a rule, the sexes in goatsuckers differ very little. Many species possess "ears" similar to those of the owls; as in those birds, too, some kinds have dark and others yellow eyes. In fact, the goatsuckers are more nearly allied to the owls than are any other birds, the links between them being found in the Podargus group of night-jars, and in the guacharo bird (Steatornis caripensis). The Podargi differ from the other night-jars in several particulars: they have a strong hooked bill, and much shorter wings, indicative of less aerial habits; they also perch on trees in the usual manner, and lay white eggs, in an open nest of twigs on the branches; or, in the case of the owlet night-jars, which resemble them except in having the usual weak bill of the group, in the hollow boughs of trees. As a rule, night-jars lay their eggs, beautifully mottled with greys and browns so as to imitate pebbles, on the bare ground, on which also they usually rest; if they happen to perch on a tree, sitting along the branch instead of across it. The guacharo is a bird of so peculiar a type that it can be included neither among owls nor goatsuckers, and has habits of the most melodramatic character. In form it is like a large night-jar, but has the toothed bill of a falcon, and several anatomical peculiarities; It also feeds, at any rate partly, on fruits, a habit shared by no other might-bird. It lays its one egg, white with bloody stains, in a rude nest in the sides of certain mysterious caverns (the best known breeding-place being in Trinidad), which the Indians-though they enter them yearly to obtain the young birds, which are very fat and yield a valuable oil-are afraid to penetrate to any distance; for they are said to be haunted by the spirits of the dead, a belief which is easily accounted for when the weird effect produced by the harsh Cries of the birds, re-echoed from the roof and walls of the cavern, is caken into account. Many of the true goatsuckers have notes of the most remarkable character, as, for instance, the "whip-poor-will," and "chuck-will'swidow," both American species; and an Australian Podargus demands "more pork" in such a monotonous and sepulchral tone, hat it is most depressing to listen to. The only night-jar common in England has, as is well known, a curious purring note, which seems o be of a ventriloquial character. It can also produce a cracking ound by striking its wings together during flight, like the pigeon. Dur bird is about the size of a turtle-dove, the average dimensions of ne tamily, though the Podargi are larger. It is migratory, leaving es for Africa in the autumn, and returning again in the spring-a habit share which range on the whole than their riv However to frighten it active and no of night, and and the weka flight for their migratory bird their long an strange and va done as much growth of supe been, and yet tremble be hell habit shared by other species, such as the American night hawk, which ranges in the summer as far north as the Arctic regions. But, on the whole, this family is less widely distributed, and less important than their rivals in nocturnal cacophony, the owls. However, by no means all the birds that "flit through the night to frighten it" are owls or night-jars; many other species are most active and noisy during the hours of darkness. The bittern is a bird of night, and so are those strange New Zealand birds, the apteryx and the wekas, or flightless rails; and most of the duck tribe take flight for their feeding-grounds only as evening draws on. Then, too, migratory birds, from the chiff-chaff to the wild goose, usually pursue their long and dangerous journey by night; and no doubt their. strange and varied calls, heard suddenly amid the darkness, have done as much as the notes of the true birds of night to encourage the growth of superstitions, to which savage and civilised men alike have been, and yet are, a prey, whether the unseen terror at which they tremble be hell-hound or banshee, wraith or wildjäger. F. FINN. LIVING TO EAT AND EATING TO LIVE. G REAT men are always credited with being abstemious in their eating and drinking, and the first Napoleon was no exception to the rule. Describing the food which was placed on his table to his physician, Dr. Antommarchi, he said: "Physicians have the right of regulating the table; it is fit I should give you an account of mine. Behold what it consists of a basin of soup, two plates of meat, one of vegetables, a salad when I can take it, compose the whole service; half a bottle of claret, which I dilute with a good deal of water, serves me for drink; I drink a little of it pure towards the end of the repast. Sometimes, when I feel fatigued, I substitute champagne for claret: it is a sure means of giving a fillip to the stomach." The doctor having expressed his surprise at this temperate mode of living, he replied: "In my marches with the army of Italy, I never failed to put in the bow of my saddle a bottle of wine, some bread, and a cold fowl. This provision sufficed for the wants of the day; I may even say I often shared it with others. I thus gained time; the economy of my table turned to account on the field of battle. For the rest, I eat fast, masticate little; my meals do not consume my hours. This is not what you will approve the most; but in my present situation what signifies it?" He was referring here to his captivity at St. Helena. The daily habits of the poet Southey, a man who made literature a successful and healthy profession, are thus described by his son in his life of his father: "Breakfast was at nine, after a little reading, dinner at four, tea at six, supper at half-past nine, and the intervals filled up with reading or writing, except that he regularly walked between two and four, and took a short sleep before tea, the outline of his day when he was in full work will have been given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over, though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was open to enter into conversation, to amuse and be amused." This rational mode of living deserved its reward: temperance, soberness and chastity preserved his mental powers vigorous to old age, and he has left to futüre generations work that will keep his memory green. Shelley was a vegetarian, and an idealist. Perhaps, if he had been a meat eater, his verses would have displayed more passion and fire, for the contrast between his poetry and Byron's is striking, though Byron himself attributes his best work to the inspiration of gin-andwater. Byron's life is a melancholy example of how soon the candle that is lit at both ends burns out. Byron's horror of corpulence drove him to dietetic expedients to avoid it that certainly tended to shorten his life, such as chewing tobacco to stave off hunger and the desire for food, taking inordinate quantities of vinegar, and other questionable methods. Had he lived in these days he could have been told how to keep down fat and still live well, and enjoy most of the luxuries of life. Walter Scott passed a genial social existence, took plenty of exercise, lived temperately, and insisted on having seven or eight hours of sleep out of the twenty-four; hence he lived to a good age, and did more work-that bears in every page of it the impress of genius-than any man of his day. Burns, his equally gifted countryman, lived to eat and drink, and hence the result. It is true he left poetry behind him that the world will not willingly let die; but what might he not have done? The high, strong, nervous system of the poet and literary man bears excess badly, and Swift seemed to know this, for in a letter to Pope he says: "The least transgression of yours, if it be only two bits and a sup more than your stint, is a great debauch, for which you will certainly pay more than those sots who are carried dead drunk to bed." The machinery of sensitive souls is as delicate as it is valuable, and cannot bear the rough usage that coarse customs inflict upon it. It is broken to pieces by blows which cominon natures laugh at. Equally, when we descend into the lower regions of Parnassus, the abode of talent and cleverness, the care of the body is absolutely essential to long life and continued usefulness. He who lives by his intellect must take care of his stomach, for, after all, "mind is matter and soul is porridge." But a nation is not made up exclusively of Napoleons and great men, any more than of anchorites and sybarites, and as the characteristics of a nation in a great measure depend upon its diet, it is not too much to say that the energy, pluck, and determination of the English race is due to the greater variety and larger consumption of food, more especially of animal food-flesh-indulged in by them, than to any attributes of blood or climate; in fact, I believe that if the |