Now wild duck and widgeon abound, Snipes sit by the half frozen rills Where woodcocks are frequently found, That sport such amazing long bills. The winds blow out shrilly and hoarse, And the rivers are choking with ice; And it comes as a matter of course, That Wallsends are rising in price. Alas! for the poor! as unwilling I gaze on each famishing group; I never miss giving a shilling, To the parish subscription for soup. The wood pigeon, sacred to love, Is wheeling in circles on high; How charming he looks in the grove! How charming he looks in the pie! Now gone is St. Thomas’s day, The shortest, alas! in the year. And Christmas is hasting away, With its holly and berries and beer, And the old year for ever is gone, With the tabor, the pipe, and the dance; And gone is our collar of brawn, And gone is the mermaid to France. The scythe and the hour glass of time, Those fatal mementos of woe, Seem to utter in accents sublime, “We are all of us _going to go_!” * * * * * We are truly and agreeably informed by the “Mirror of the Months,” that “Now periodical works put on their best attire; the old ones expressing their determination to become new, and the new ones to become old; and each makes a point of putting forth the first of some pleasant series (such as this, for example!), which cannot fail to fix the most fugitive of readers, and make him her own for another twelve months at least.” NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR. Under this head it is proposed to place the “Mean temperature of every day in the Year for London and its environs, on an average of Twenty Years,” as deduced by Mr. Howard, from observations commencing with the year 1797, and ending with 1816. For the first three years, Mr. Howard’s observations were conducted at Plaistow, a village about three miles and a half N. N. E. of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, four miles E. of the edge of London, with the Thames a mile and a half to the S., and an open level country, for the most part well-drained land, around it. The thermometer was attached to a post set in the ground, under a Portugal laurel, and from the lowness of this tree, the whole instrument was within three feet of the turf; it had the house and offices, buildings of ordinary height, to the S. and S. E. distant about twenty yards, but was in other respects freely exposed. For the next three years, the observations were made partly at Plaistow and partly at Mr. Howard’s laboratory at Stratford, a mile and a half to the N. W., on ground nearly of the same elevation. The thermometer had an open N. W. exposure, at six feet from the ground, close to the river Lea.