the vineyards to the places where it is sold, and sherry wine is very often observed to retain the flavour of the hides in which it has been transported. Such bottles as those which have now been described were of course strongest when they were new. Our Saviour says to his disciples, "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, or else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles perish; but new wine is put into new bottles, and both are preserved." He meant leathern bottles. There is a passage in the 119th Psalm, which becomes peculiarly and powerfully beautiful to the reader who clearly understands what sort of bottles were used in the East. The Psalmist is describing the depth of his tribulation and grief, and the comfort he derives from reflecting on the certainty of God's promises. He likens his outward appearance to that of a skin bottle or bag, which, when not in use, is hung up near the fire, and becomes withered and blackened by the smoke. "I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy commandments."-Saturday Magazine. ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. Cowper had the misfortune to lose his mother when he was only about six years old. He says, nearly fifty years after her death, " Not a day passes in which I do not think of her; such was the impression her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short."-Southey's Life of Cowper. O THAT those lips had language! Life has pass'd Who bidd'st me honour, with an artless song, But gladly, as the precept were her own: A momentary dream that thou art she. My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss ; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers-Yes. I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such ?-It was.- Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return: What ardently I wish'd, I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived; By expectation every day beguiled, Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. Thus, many a sad to-morrow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learn'd at last submission to my lot, But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children, not thine, have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capp'd, 'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession! but the record fair, That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd Not scorn'd in Heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I prick'd them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast, So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach'd the shore, And now, farewell! Time unrevoked has run And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, Time has but half succeeded in his theft Thyself removed, thy power to sooth me left.-Cowper. ISLANDS PRODUCED BY INSECTS. THE whole group of the Thousand Islands, and indeed the greater part of all those whose surfaces are flat, in the neighbourhood of the equator, owe their origin to the labours of that order of marine worms which Linnæus has arranged under the name of Zoophyta.-These little animals, in a most surprising manner, construct their calcareous habitations under an infinite variety of forms, yet with that order and regularity, each after its own manner, which to the minute inquirer, is so discernible in every part of the creation. But, although the eye may be convinced of the fact, it is difficult for the human mind to conceive the possibility of insects so small being endued with the power, much less of being furnished in their own bodies with the materials of constructing the immense fabrics which, in almost every part of the Eastern and Pacific Oceans lying between the tropics, are met with in the shape of detached rocks, or reefs of great extent, just even with the surface, or islands already clothed with plants, whose bases are fixed at the bottom of the sea, several hundred feet in depth, where light and heat, so very essential to animal life, if not excluded are sparingly received and feebly felt. Thousands of such rocks, and reefs, and islands, are known to exist in the eastern ocean, within, and even beyond the limits of the tropics. The eastern coast of New Holland is almost wholly girt with reefs and islands of coral rock, rising perpendicularly from the bottom of the abyss. Captain Kent, of the Buffalo, speaking of a coral reef of many miles in extent, on the south-west coast of New Caledonia, observes, that "it is level with the water's edge, and towards the sea, as steep as a wall of a house; that he sounded frequently within twice the ship's length of it with a line of 150 fathoms, or 900 feet, without being able to reach the bottom." How wonderful, how inconceivable that such stupendous fabrics should rise into existence from the silent, but incessant, and almost imperceptible labours of such insignificant worms! Some remarks on this subject by Captain Hall, in his voyage to the Island of Loo-Choo, are very curious.The examination of a coral reef, he observes, during the different stages of one tide, is particularly interesting. When the tide has left it for some time, it becomes dry, and appears to be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and ragged; but as the tide rises, and the waves begin to wash over it, the coral worms protrude themselves from holes which before were invisible. These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that, in a short time, the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion. The most common worm is in the form of a star, with arms from four to six inches long, which are moved about in all directions with a rapid motion, probably to catch food. Others are so sluggish, that they may be mistaken for pieces of the rock, and are generally of a dark colour, and from four to five inches long, and about two or three round. When the coral is broken about high-water mark, it is a solid hard |