ON THE MUSHROOM TRIBE. LOVELIER far than vernal flowers, But more the later Fungus race :— Their forms and hues some solace yield, Or China's bright inverted bowl; In beauty chief, the eye to chain, While magic Fancy's ear confounds The whistling winds with hostile sounds. JAMES WOODHOUSE. "In habit, the Fungi," writes the intelligent naturalist, Dr. Johnston, of Berwick-upon-Tweed, "vary infinitely, and in general they have little resemblance to the plants of any other order. Some resemble an umbrella, some a piece of honeycomb; others are cups in miniature; others again resemble a ball, a club, or a mace, or assume the forms of sea-corals; while many defy comparison with any familiar objects, and grow in figures peculiar to themselves." They are of quick growth and short duration, and frequently exhibit every variety of shade and tint. "Let but the lover of Natural History," says Dr. Fleming, "free his mind from prejudice, and then examine the forms and colouring of the Fungi, and he will be compelled to admit, that many of them rival in symmetry and splendour the Rose and the Lily, those gaudy ornaments of Flora." "As there is no critical mark to determine at once between poisonous and salutary Mushrooms, we may lay it down as a general rule, that those should be suspected and avoided, that grow in moist and marshy grounds, and especially in the shade, that have a dirty looking surface,-and whose gills are soft, moist, and porous."-Dr. Good. Old Gerarde gives the following advice respecting these "voluptuous poisons: " The meadow mushrooms are in kinde the best, THE THRUSH'S NEST. WITHIN a thick and spreading hawthorn bush I heard, from morn to morn, a merry Thrush And by and bye, like heath-bells gilt with dew, CLARE. TO THE THRUSH. OH! herald of the Spring! while yet Braves the bleak gust, and driving rain: For thee, then, may the hawthorn bush, Still may thy nest, with lichen lin’d, MRS. C. SMITH. The Thrush, Turdus musicus, is very generally admired for his melodious song, which in plaintiveness, compass, and execution, is much superior to that of the Blackbird. He begins to sing as early as February, and is known by the names of the Thrush, Throstle, Mavis, and Grey-bird. Fair Venus' train, appear, And wake the purple year! The untaught harmony of Spring: Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech* Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think (At ease reclin❜d in rustic state) Still is the toiling hand of care; Yet hark! how through the peopled air The insect youth are on the wing, And float amid the liquid noon : To contemplation's sober eye And they that creep, and they that fly, Alike the busy and the gay In fortune's varying colours dress'd: They leave, in dust to rest. Methinks I hear in accents low The sportive kind reply; 'Poor Moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! *The character here applied by Gray to the beech is by no means appropriate, for no tree is so little or so seldom either rude or moss-grown. |