To accomplish its purpose it has made ample preparations. All through the previous summer its round leaves, admirably fitted to their purpose, have been spread to the mountain sun and gathered in the fuel to be burned later on. When winter arrives the leaves had grown thick in rich material and so leathery that no amount of snow could injure them. The first warmth of spring melting the edges of the snow sheet sends the moisture trickling down to the Soldanella’s roots. This, acting upon them as water upon malting barley, brings about germination. The plant, absorbing the oxygen in the air under the ice and combining it with the fuel in its own substance, melts its way into the open air. A fragile flower forcing its way through a solid crust of ice. Literally, not metaphorically, a slow combustion store. This novel feat is accomplished every season, yet comparatively few observers note it. Louise Jamison. THE HUMMINGBIRDS. _Maxime miranda in minimus!_ Minutest of the feathered kind, Possessing every charm combined, Nature, in forming thee, designed That thou shouldst be, A proof within how little space She can comprise such perfect grace, Rendering the lovely, fairy race Beauty’s epitome. —_Charlotte Smith._ The discovery of “The rare little bird of the bower, Bird of the musical wing,” being coincident with that of the New World, the ancients were denied the exhilarating shock of delight that has been vouchsafed to their descendants when that “——Quick feathered spangled shot, Rapid as thought from spot to spot, Showing the fairy humming-bird,” and their writings lack the glamour of his “glossy, varying dyes;” for, according to Lesson, the first mention which is made of hummingbirds in the narratives of adventurers who proceeded to America, not with the design of studying its natural productions, but for the discovery of gold, dates from 1558. Of the name hummingbird or hum-bird, Professor Newton says its earliest use, as yet discovered, is said to be by Thomas Morton in The New England Canaan, printed in 1632, while in 1646 Sir Thomas Browne wrote: “So have all Ages conceaved, and most are still ready to sweare, the Wren is the least of Birds, yet the discoveries of America, and even of our own Plantations, shewed us one farre lesse, that is the Hum-bird, not much exceeding a Beetle.” Mr. Ridgway cites the case of Mr. Benjamin Buttivant, writing from Boston in 1697, who told of a hum-bird that he fed with honey, that was “A Prospect to many Comers.”