ARMINIUS.

A narrative of the epoch A. D. 9, when Germany took up arms for her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this special attraction-that it forms part of our own national history. Had Arminius been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eyder and the Elbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and "we, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning the earth, from one end of it to the other," would have been utterly cut off from existence.

Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are wholly unconnected in race with the Romans and Britons, who inhabited this country before the comingover of the Saxons; that, "nationally speaking, the history of Cæsar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history of the animals which then inhabited our forests." There seems ample evidence to prove that the Romanised Celts, whom our Teutonic forefathers found here, influenced materially the character of our nation. But the main stream of our people was and is Germanic. Our language alone decisively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one of our national heroes than Caractacus: and it was our own primeval fatherland that the brave German rescued, when he slaughtered the Roman legions eighteen centuries ago, in the marshy glen between the Lippe and the Ems.

Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the prospects of Germany, when Arminius planned the general rising of his countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons; and what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined; while the enemy's troops consisted of veterans in the highest state of

equipment and training, familiarised with victory, and commanded by officers of proved skill and valour. The resources of Rome seemed boundless; her tenacity of purpose was believed to be invincible. There was no hope of foreign sympathy or aid; for "the selfgoverning powers, that had filled the old world, had bent one after another before the rising power of Rome, and had vanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations."

The German chieftain knew well the gigantic power of the oppressor. Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct, or in ignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Roman language and civilisation; he had served in the Roman armies; he had been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the dignity of the equestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to confer rank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nations which she wished to enslave. Among other young German chieftains, Arminius and his brother, who were the heads of the noblest house in the tribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as fit objects for the exercise of this insidious system. Roman refinements and dignities succeeded in denationalising the brother, who assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and adhered to Rome throughout all her wars against his country. Arminius remained unbought by honours or wealth, uncorrupted by refinement or luxury. He aspired to and obtained from Roman enmity a higher title, than ever could have been given by Roman favour. It is in the page of Rome's greatest historian, that his name has come down to us with the proud addition of "Liberator haud dubie Germaniæ."

Creasy.

ADAPTATION OF THE COVERING OF BIRDS TO THEIR

CONDITION.

The covering of birds cannot escape the most vulgar observation. Its lightness, its smoothness, its warmth,

or

the disposition of the feathers all inclined backward, the down about their stem, the overlapping of their tips, their different configuration in different parts, not to mention the variety of their colours, constitute a vestment for the body, so beautiful, and so appropriate to the life which the animal is to lead, as that, I think we should have had no conception of anything equally perfect, if we had never seen it, can never imagine anything more SO. Let us suppose (what is possible only in supposition) a person who had never seen a bird to be presented with a plucked pheasant, and bid to set his wits to work, how to contrive for it a covering which shall unite the qualities of warmth, levity, and least resistance to the air, and the highest degree of each; giving it also as much beauty and ornament as he could afford; he is the person to behold the work of the Deity, in this part of His creation, with the sentiments which are due to it. The commendation which the general aspect of the feathered world seldom fails of exciting, will be increased by farther examination. It is one of those cases in which the philosopher has more to admire than the common observer. Every feather is a mechanical wonder. If we look at the quill, we find properties not easily brought together-strength and lightness. I know few things more remarkable than the strength and lightness of the very pen with which I am writing. If we cast our eye to the upper part of the stem, we see a material, made for the purpose, used in no other class of animals, and in no other part of birds; tough, light, pliant, elastic. The pith also, which feeds the feathers, is amongst animal substances peculiar, neither bone, flesh, membrane, nor tendon. But the artificial part of a feather is the beard, or, as it is sometimes, I believe, called, the vane. By the beards are meant, what are fastened on each side of the stem, and what constitute the breadth of the feather; what we usually strip off from one side or both when we make a pen. The separate pieces, or laminæ, of which the beard is composed, are called

threads, sometimes filaments, or rays. Now, the first thing which an attentive observer will remark is, how much stronger the beard of the feather shows itself to be, when pressed in a direction perpendicular to its plane, than when rubbed, either up or down, in the line of the stem: and he will soon discover the structure which occasions this difference, viz., that the lamina whereof these beards are composed are flat, and placed with their flat sides towards each other; by which means, whilst they easily bend for the approaching of each other, as any one may perceive by drawing his finger ever so lightly upwards, they are much harder to bend out of their place, which is the direction in which they have to encounter the impulse and pressure of the air, and in which their strength is wanted and put to the trial.

This is one particularity in the structure of a feather; a second is still more extraordinary. Whoever examines a feather cannot help taking notice that the threads or laminæ of which we have been speaking, in their natural state unite; that their union is something more than the mere apposition of loose surfaces; that they are not parted asunder without some degree of force; that nevertheless there is no glutinous cohesion among them; that, therefore, by some mechanical means or other, they catch or clasp among themselves, thereby giving to the beard or vane its closeness and compactness of texture. Nor is this all; when two laminæ, which have been separated by accident or force, are brought together again, they immediately reclasp; the connection, whatever it was, is perfectly recovered, and the beard of the feather becomes as smooth and firm as if nothing had happened to it. Draw your finger down the feather, which is against the grain, and you break probably the junction of some of the contiguous threads; draw your finger up the feather, and you restore all things to their former state. This is no common contrivance; and now for the mechanism by which it is effected. The threads or laminæ above mentioned are interlaced with one another; and the

interlacing is performed by means of a vast number of fibres or teeth, which the lamina shoot forth on each side, and which hook and grapple together. A friend of mine counted fifty of these fibres in one-twentieth of an inch. These fibres are crooked; but curved after a different manner: for those which proceed from the thread on the side towards the extremity of the feather are longer, more flexible, and bent downward; whereas those which proceed from the side towards the beginning or quill-end of the feather are shorter, firmer, and turn upwards. The process, then, which takes place is as follows-when two laminæ are pressed together, so that these long fibres are forced far enough over the short ones, their crooked parts fall into the cavity made by the crooked parts of the others, just as the latch that is fastened to a door enters into the cavity of the catch fixed to the door-post, and there hooking itself, fastens the door; for it is properly in this manner that one thread of a feather is fastened to the other.

This admirable structure of the feather, which it is easy to see with the microscope, succeeds perfectly for the use to which nature has designed it; which use was, not only that the laminæ might be united, but that when one thread or lamina has been separated from another by some external violence, it might be reclasped with sufficient facility and expedition. In the ostrich, this apparatus of crotchets and fibres, of hooks and teeth, is wanting; and we see the consequence of the want. The filaments hang loose and separate from one another, forming only a kind of down; which constitution of the feathers, however it may fit them for the flowing honours of a lady's head-dress, may be reckoned an imperfection in the bird, inasmuch as wings, composed of these feathers, although they may greatly assist it in running, do not serve for flight.

But at present our business with feathers is as they are the covering of the bird. And herein a singular circumstance occurs. In the small order of birds which winter with us, from a snipe downwards, let the