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MOUNT TABOR.

MOUNT Tabor is a very remarkable mountain, of sugar-loaf shape, standing alone on the plain of Galilee, but surrounded by hills at some little distance. Its summit is flat and very fertile, being pretty thickly studded with trees and shrubs, though towards the south it is more open, and from that quarter there is a most agreeable view which amply compensates for the exertion of the ascent. Round the mountain, the plains of Esdraelon and Galilee spread their beauty to the eye, and the Mediterranean rolls afar in the north-west. Mount Hermon is descried in the east, as also the sea of Tiberias, and further to the right rises the high ridge of Gilboa: at the same time, the scenes of our Saviour's life are continually brought before the mind as the eye surveys, and the ear almost at every turn catches the names of places hallowed by his presence.

NOTES ON THE MONTH.

By a Naturalist.

DECEMBER.

"'Tis done! dread winter spreads his latest glooms,

And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year." SHALL we sit shivering by the fire, or brave the cold, and by exercise give DECEMBER, 1840.

warmth to our frame, and energy to our feelings? What! though "winds be loud and ways be foul," and snow cover the ground, shall we fear to venture forth? Come into the fields, for though nature wear her humblest garments, she is still attractive to her votaries.

See, the hardy furze (Ulex Europaeus) which covers the common, is putting forth its golden blossoms, in beautiful contrast with the dark green of its thorny stem. This shrub, which is very abundant, forms in summer a fortress guarded with an array of spears, to which many of our smaller birds, as the linnet, repair, to build their nests; in winter, it offers beneath its dense canopy, an asylum for various animals, which there find security and concealment. There the hedgehog often hybernates, and field mice and shrews make their burrows; the viper too, intertwined with others of its race, for the sake of mutual warmth, there, in some snug recess, passes the colder season; and the lizard secures a dormitory. But the furze is not the only plant which dares to unfold its flowers: the polyanthus may be often seen in bloom, the mezereon, and the daisy; and in sheltered borders, the snowdrop, towards the close of the month, peeps timidly forth, and discloses its bell-like blos

som.

2 M

At this season, when the ground is frozen, and the snow lies deep, the timid tenants of the fields often approach the habitations of man; hares and rabbits venture into gardens, and nibble the culinary vegetables; the tracks of the fox and the polecat in the snow, prove that these marauders have been roaming all night about the farmer's barns and outhouses; and when the wolf was a denizen of our uncleared woodlands, urged by want, and rendered thus doubly ferocious, that dreaded animal prowled around the hut of the peasant, and devastated the sheepfold and the cattle yard, During the winter, indeed, the ravages of this beast of prey were very great; nor was man safe from its attacks. These animals abounded in the hilly and thinly peopled parts of the island, and their destruction became a matter of such importance, that in the reign of Edgar the punishment of certain offences was remitted, on the condition of the offender producing a certain number of wolves' tongues. A tribute of wolves' heads was received in Wales, as equivalent for taxes, otherwise to be paid in money; and long after that period, lands were held on the condition of hunting these animals. Yorkshire, in the time of Athelstan, so abounded with them, that places of refuge were built for the security of travellers, tracked by sanguinary troops, "burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim." Happily, the wolf no longer disturbs the peasant with his nightly howl; but in some parts of the continent, and especially in the wooded regions of the northern countries, this animal is very common, and every winter commits extensive depredations.

The otter, well known for its destructiveness to fish, quits the smaller streams which it haunts, or the lake where it habitually dwells, should they now become frozen, and seeks broader and deeper rivers, and not unfrequently it descends to the sea. In some cases, when the means of obtaining fish fail, it has been known to make inland ex

cursions, and visit the farmyard, attacking sucking pigs and poultry; but instances of this kind are very rare. On the other hand, the polecat has been ascertained to pursue and capture fish, when other means of support become scarce; and an instance of this

kind is related by Bewick, for the truth of which he personally vouches. During a severe storm, one of these animals was traced in the snow from the side of a rivulet to its hole at some distance from it. As it was observed to have made frequent trips, and as other marks were seen in the snow, which could not be easily accounted for, it was thought a matter worthy of greater attention: its hole was accordingly examined, the polecat (or foumart, as it is termed in the northern countries) was taken, and eleven fine eels were discovered to be the fruits of its nocturnal excursions. The marks on the snow were found to have been made by the motion of the eels in the creature's mouth. Mr. Bell, in his interesting History of British Quadrupeds, alludes to the foregoing circumstance, and quotes from Loudon's magazine an analogous instance, in which a female polecat was pursued to her nest, where five young ones were found, comfortably embedded in a snug nest of withered grass, but adjacent to which, in a hole by themselves were packed forty large frogs and two toads, all alive, though merely so; they were, indeed, capable of sprawling a little, and that was all, for the polecat had contrived to strike them all with palsy. They were found, on a more careful inspection, to have been bitten through the brain.

In the colder portions of England and the continent, the stoat, or ermine, assumes that snowy whiteness of fur, excepting at the end of the tail, which renders it so much esteemed, as a lining for winter garments, and for robes of state and royalty. In the southern districts of our country, the ermine seldom becomes entirely white, this colour only appearing in patches, mottling the brown; but in Scotland and the northern counties of England, pure white specimens are often met with; and we have seen one, in this snowy garb, from Ireland. Still, both as regards the fullness and softness and also the purity of the colour of the fur, no British specimens at all equal those obtained in Russia, Norway, and Siberia; nor indeed is the animal so abundant in our islands as to be worth consideration in a commercial point of view. On the contrary, in the northern regions of Europe, the ermine exists in astonishing numbers, the vast forests covering with

out interruption large tracts of country,
affording it food and concealment: it is
only hunted during the severest months
of winter, and a sufficient number remain,
after the season is over, to replenish the
stock. Still the annual destruction is
immense;
for in 1833, the importation
of ermine skins, into England alone,
amounted to 105,139.

other examples, that of an ermine which was shot on the 9th of May, 1814, in a garb intermediate between its summer and winter dress. On all the under parts, the white had nearly disappeared, in exchange for the primrose yellow, their ordinary tinge in summer; but the upper parts of the body had not fully acquired their summer colour, which is a deep yellowish brown. There were several white spots, and not a few with a tinge of yellow; and upon examining these white and yellow spots, not a trace of interspersed new short hair could be discerned: this would certainly have been the case if a change of colour is effected by a change of fur. Besides, while some parts of the fur on the back had acquired their proper colour, even in those parts, numerous hairs could be observed, of a wax

We have, on several occasions, alluded to the change of colour, from a brown, or richly tinted dress, to white, which occurs in so many of the northern mammalia and birds; and we have mentioned, that the ultimate cause of this phenomenon may be concealment from natural enemies, by the approximation of hue to that of snows which now cover the face of the country, and also the preservation of the animal heat, which is more completely retained when above the temperature of the surround-yellow; and in all the intermediate ing atmosphere by a white than by a stages from yellowish brown, through dark vestment. The mode, however, yellow to white, proving that the white by which this change is accomplished, hairs were regaining their summer hue. yet remains to be pointed out; it in- | Again, in reference to the analogous volves many difficulties, and some inter-change in the plumage of the ptaresting points of physiology. In the instances alluded to, namely the ermine, the variable hare, the ptarmigan, etc., the question naturally arises, Is it by a moult, or casting off, of the old fur or feathers, and the growth of a new covering, that the change of colour is produced? or does the change depend upon the fading of the brown or other colours into white, and the return of the old colour again in the same identical hairs or feathers? The late colonel Montagu, whose name stands so high among the practical naturalists of our country, evidently considering both hair and feathers, when completely developed, to be extra vascular, or, in other words, to have neither circulation, nor a power of secretion, or absorption, thus expresses his opinion:-"Some species of birds seem to change their winter and summer feathers, at least in part; in some, this is performed by moulting twice a year, as in the ptarmigan; in others, only additional feathers are thrown out; but we have no conception of the feathers changing colour, although we have been informed of such happening in the course of one night."

Dr. Fleming, on the contrary, contends for a change of colouring, and not of hairs or feathers, and adduces, in confirmation of his opinion, among

migan, he observes that the young birds have their first plumage mottled, chestnut, brown, and black, similarly to that of their parents; but they become white in winter, and again mottled in spring. Now these young birds, provided the change of colour is effected by moulting, must therefore produce three coverings of feathers in the course of ten months. This is a waste of vital energy, which no bird, in its natural state, can be supposed to be capable of sustaining, as moulting is the most debilitating process they undergo. In birds of full maturity, two moultings must be necessary; one on the approach of winter, one on the return of spring. It is, however, remarkable, that in these changes the range of colour is from brown, through grey to white, a transition so nearly resembling that which takes place in the fur of the ermine, that Dr. Fleming is disposed to regard the change of colour as being effected in the old feathers, and not by the accession of new plumage, in place of the old, the change being independent of the ordinary annual moulting of the birds.

In corroboration of Dr. Fleming's, we may adduce the following statement by sir John Ross, in his Appendix to the Narrative of a "Second Voyage in search of a North-West Passage," etc.

It relates to that little animal, the Hud- | Quadrupeds. "Within the last nine son's Bay lemming, an individual of years," says the writer, "I have had the which lived for several of the winter good fortune to meet with two ermines months in his cabin. 66 Finding that, (stoats in their white dress) alive, and unlike what occurred in our tame hares, in two of the most different winters that under similar circumstances, it retained have occurred for many years: the one its summer fur, I was induced to try the was in the extremely severe winter of effect of exposing it, for a short time, to January to March, 1823; and the other the winter temperature. It was accord- was in the almost as extremely mild ingly placed on deck, in a cage, on the January of the year 1832. In conse1st of February; and next morning, quence of the months of December, after having been exposed to a tempera- 1831, and January, 1832, having been ture of thirty degrees below zero, the so extremely mild, I was surprised to fur on the cheeks, and a patch on each see this stoat clothed in his winter fur ; shoulder had become perfectly white. On and the more so, because, about three the following day, the patches on each weeks or a month before, I had seen a shoulder had extended considerably, and stoat in its summer coat, or brown fur. the posterior part of the body and flanks I was therefore naturally led to consider, had turned to a dirty white: during the whether the respective situations, which next four days, the change continued but the brown and the white stoats, seen by me, slowly; and at the end of a week, it was this warm winter, inhabited, could alone entirely white, with the exception of a account for the difference of the colours dark band across the shoulders, pro- of their fur, in any satisfactory manner. longed posteriorly down the back, form- The situation, then, where the brown stoat ing a kind of saddle, where the colour of was seen, is in north latitude fifty-four the fur had not changed in the smallest degrees, thirty-two seconds, nearly; and degree. The thermometer continued be- west longitude one degree, nineteen tween thirty and forty degrees below zero seconds, nearly, upon a plain, elevated a until the 18th, without producing any very few feet above the river Tees, in further change, when the poor little suf- the county of Durham. Again, the place ferer perished from the severity of the where I met with the ermine, or white cold. On examining the skin, it ap- stoat, on the 23rd of January, 1832, is in peared that all the white parts of the fur the North Riding of Yorkshire, in north were longer than the unchanged por- latitude fifty-four degrees, twelve seconds, tions; and that the ends of the fur only nearly; and west longitude one degree, were white, so far as they exceeded in thirteen seconds, nearly. It is situated length the dark-coloured fur ; and by at a very considerable elevation, and in removing these white tips with a pair of the immediate neighbourhood of. the scissors, it appeared in its dark summer lofty moorlands, called the Hambledon dress, but slightly changed in colour, Hills. These constitute the south-western and precisely of the same length as be- range of the Cleveland hills, which rise fore the experiment." in height from one thousand one hundred, to one thousand two hundred feet above the sea. At this time, the ermine was making its way toward the hills, where, no doubt, he lived, or which he frequently haunted; and consequently, the great coldness of the atmosphere, even in so mild a winter, upon so elevated and bleak a spot as that moorland range, would satisfactorily account for the appearance of the animal in its white fur; although the place is in a direct line, more than twenty-three miles to the south of the fields, near the Tees, inhabited by the brown stoat in question." The comment on this statement is, that, if this change be the result of a law connected with season only, and therefore produced by a renewal of fur, it would take place,

Here then, in an animal which does not naturally become white in winter, we find, when cruelly subjected to an extremely low temperature, that the hairs not only elongate, adding fulness to the fur; but they actually begin to assume a white tint, which, had the animal lived, would doubtless have disappeared on the return of warmer weather.

It may here be observed, that this change is not one dependent upon season, but upon temperature; for in mild winters, and in sheltered situations, this change does not occur. This fact is well illustrated by J. Hogg, Esq., in a paper published on the subject, in the fifth volume of Loudon's Magazine, and referred to by Professor Bell in his British

whether in cold or mild winters, in cold | lutely an alteration of colour, and not or sheltered situations.

The opinion of colonel Montague, therefore, that hairs and feathers are thoroughly extra-vascular, is certainly erroneous. We cannot, it is true, trace the vessels either of absorption, secretion, or circulation, which pervade the plumelets of a feather, or the body of a hair; but still, when facts prove that changes of colour undoubtedly occur in feathers and hairs, we are constrained, though we cannot detect their vascularity by our glasses, to admit the conclusion.

66

In the first part of the transactions of the Zoological Society of London, there is a very masterly essay by one of our most exact and observant naturalists, Mr. Yarrell, on the laws which appear to influence the changes and plumage of birds," and in this, many experiments are detailed which bear upon the point.

A herring gull was examined at Christmas, when Mr. Yarrell found that several of the tertial wing feathers had their basal halves of a blue grey, the remaining parts mottled with brown. Two notches were made with scissors on the webs of these feathers, as marks of reference to the two colours then present. Some other feathers were wholly mottled with brown, and were therefore marked with only one notch. The bird was re-examined in April; the tertial feathers which when marked, were of two colours, Mr. Yarrell now found to be entirely of a blue grey; the brown having disappeared, one was even tipped with white; the other feathers, which when marked were wholly mottled, were now for two thirds of their length of a pure white, the terminal third alone remaining of a mottled brown.

In another example, namely, the black tailed godwit, (Limosa melanura,) black markings began on the lowest part of the breast and belly on the 24th of February; three days afterwards, Mr. Yarrell observed, that the feathers on the upper part of the head, neck, and breast, began to change colour from dusky brown to red. On the 29th, he found that the scapularies, the wing coverts, and the tertials had begun also to change their colour. By the 29th of April, the bird had arrived at the full colour of the breeding plumage. That the change going on in this bird since the 24th of February, was abso

produced by moulting, is proved by the fact, that he examined the bird, day by day; the change, he states, commenced at the base of each feather, the tip being the last part that altered in colour.

Now, although these and many other experiments prove beyond a doubt, that feathers do both assume and lose colour; and that in some birds the change in their livery is to be attributed to this circumstance alone, still it is not pretended that it is exclusively the case in every instance. Various birds, besides a change of colour, acquire ornamental plumes on the approach of the breeding season, which they moult off as soon as that period is over, and with them lose the rich tints which overspread the rest of their plumage. In our notes for the past month, we instanced the grebes.

The ruff, (Tringa pugnax,) may also be cited. In spring, the male of this bird assumes a full frill, consisting of elongated feathers, arising from the neck and throat, while tufts spring, one from each side of the head behind the eyes; and it is farther remarkable that in no two individuals is the colour of this ornamental temporary frill alike, nor in the same bird for two successive years. The following instance of this partial moulting, is from Mr. Yarrell's paper already alluded to. About the 24th of May, the male of the beautiful mandarin duck (Anas galericulata) commenced moulting off his ornamental breeding plumage; and by the 3rd of July he so much resembled the female, that it was a matter of some difficulty to distinguish them, except by a close inspection. He remained in this state until the 22nd of August, when he began to shed the feathers which were to be replaced by others of a more brilliant colour, and on the 25th of September, he appeared in his perfect breeding plumage. In this last moulting, the bird did not shed all his feathers, but only those that gave place to new ones of a more brilliant colour.

Thus far have we been led, by observing the changes which take place in the fur of the stoat, and variable hare, and in the plumage of the ptarmigan, during the rigours of winter, to enter into the laws on which these phenomena are based. They speak of Almighty power and wisdom, and prove how in the minutest, and as we thought

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