The feathered tenants of these woods are mostly birds of prey, or at all events such as the raven, the jay, the pie, and others which can either defend themselves against, or escape from, the falcons that consider these solitudes as their own especial domains. The voices of few singing-birds are to be heard; they have taken refuge nearer the habitations of man: but the hooting of the owl, the beating of the woodpecker, and the screaming of kites and hawks, are all the living sounds that proceed here from the air. Red-deer, wolves, wild-boars, roebucks, and foxes, are the denizens of these forests and these mountains: there is room here for them all to live at their ease; and they abound. No one with a good barrel and a sure aim, ever entered these forests in vain: his burden is commonly more than he can carry home. It is in fact a glorious country for the sportsman; for the lower ranges of the hills abound in hares, the cultivated grounds have plenty of partridges and quails, and the forests are tenanted as has been seen. He who can content himself with his gun or his rod--for the streams are full of trout--may here pass a golden age, without a thought for the morrow, without a desire unfulfilled. Certainly, if I wished to retire from the world and lead a life of philosophic indifference, not altogether out of the reach of society when I wanted it, these hills and these forests of Auvergne, and the Mont Dor, would be the spots I should select. The mind here would become attuned to the grand harmonies of nature's own making; here, philosophy might be cultivated in good earnest; here, books might be studied and theories digested, without interruption and with inward profit. Here, a man might cultivate both science and art, and he might become again the free and happy being which, until he betook himself to congregating in towns, he was destined to be. Yes! when I do withdraw from this world's vanities and troubles, give me forests and mountains like those of Mont Dor. THE FIGHTING EIGHTY-EIGHTH.[3] The pugnacity of Irishmen has grown into a proverb, until, in the belief of many, a genuine Milesian is never at peace but when fighting. With certain nations, certain habits are inseparably associated as peculiarly characterising them. Thus, in vulgar apprehension, the Frenchman dances, the German smokes, the Spaniard serenades; and on all hands it is agreed that the Irishman fights. Naturally bellicose, his practice is pugnacious: antagonism is his salient and distinctive quality. Born in a squabble, he dies in a shindy: in his cradle he squeals a challenge; his latest groan is a sound of defiance. Pike and pistol are manifest in his well-developed bump of combativeness; his name is FIGHT, there can be no mistake about it. From highest to lowest--in the peer and the bog-trotter, the inherent propensity breaks forth, more or less modified by station and education.