d with unhesitating
assurance that he had "finished the history of the birds of the world."
Twenty centuries had served for the discovery of only eight hundred
species, but this number seemed immense, and the short-sighted
naturalist declared that the list would admit of "no material
augmentation" which embraced hardly a sixteenth of those now known to
exist. To this astonishing advance of the science of ornithology, no one
has contributed more than Audubon, by his magnificent painting and
fascinating history.

Mr. Audubon left unpublished a voluminous autobiography, which we hope
will be published with as little delay as possible.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] Wilson's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 118.

[J] Noctes Ambrosianae, vol. ii. p. 103.

[K] Introduction to the second volume of Ornithological Biography, p.
xvii.

Original Poetry.

OLD AGE.

By Alfred B. Street.

All day the chill bleak wind had shrieked and wailed
Through leafless forests, and o'er meadows sear;
Through the fierce sky great sable clouds had sailed;
Outlines were hard--all nature's looks were drear.
Gone, Indian Summer's bland, delicious haze,
Thickening soft nights and filming mellow days.
Then rose gray clouds; thin fluttered first the snow,
Then like loose shaken fleeces, then in dense streams
That muffled gradually all below
In pearly smoothness. Then outburst the gleams
At sunset; nature shone in flashing white,
And the last rays tinged all with rosy light.
So Life's bland Autumn o'er, may old age come
In muffling peace, and death display hope's radiant bloom.

THE CASTLE IN THE AIR.[L]

By R. H. Stoddard.

I.

We have two lives about us,
Within us, and without us;
Two worlds in which we dwell,
Alternate Heaven and Hell:
Without, the sombre Real,
Within our heart of hearts, the beautiful Ideal!
I stand between the thresholds of the two,
Fettered and bound with many a heavy chain;
I strive to rend their links, but all in vain;
The False is strong, and holds me from the True.
Only in dreams my spirit wanders o'er
The starry portal of the world of bliss,
And lives the life which Fate denies in this,
Which may have once been mind, but will be, nevermore.

II.

My Castle stands alone,
Away from Earth and Time