to hear the delicate tread of the game on the leaves, rustling amid the murmur of solemn winds, as the westering sun scampers down the west, with a face as red as if he had disgraced the solar family by some misdemeanor; and then, in some thick recess of passing foliage, and innumerous boughs, then and there to bore wingéd fowl, and my gentleman quadrupeds of the sylvan fastness, with cold lead, is exhilarating. All kinds of volant things that wing the autumn air--all sorts of movers on four legs--to make these succumb to the behests of minerals, deadly salts, and a percussion cap to set them on, is a kind of great glory in a very small way. I miss in my excursions of this nature, the kind of sport which I fancy they who course the fields and glades of England must peculiarly enjoy; hare-hunting, namely. 'The ancients,' saith my choice 'Elia,' must have loved hares. Else why adopt the word _lepores_, (obviously from _lepus_,) but from some subtle analogy between the delicate flavor of the latter, and the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate _pleasantries_. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction of his diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Haram-scarum is a libellous, unfounded phrase, of modern usage. 'Tis true the hare is the most circumspect of animals, sleeping with her eyes open. Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that wholesome exercise, which conduces them to form the very tit-bit of the admirers of this noble animal. Noble will I call her, in spite of her detractors, who from occasional demonstrations of the principle of self-preservation (common to all animals,) infer in her a defect of heroism. Half a hundred horsemen, with thrice the number of dogs, scour the country in pursuit of puss, across three counties; and because the well-flavored beast, weighing the odds, is _willing_ to evade the hue and cry, _with her delicate ears shrinking perchance from discord_, comes the grave naturalist, Linnæus, perchance, or Buffon, and gravely sets down the hare as--a timid animal. Why, Achilles, or Bully Dawson, would have declined the preposterous combat!' This is speaking sooth, and vindicates the fame of that class of tremulous tenants of rural haunts, whose ears, most unhappily, are sometimes longer than their lives. * * * * * SOMETIMES I surmount my pony, and traverse for miles the banks of the Schuylkill; moving, now fast, now slow, as humor prompts, or clouds portend. The city fades behind me; the beautiful eminence of Fairmount, its spouting fountains, its statues in the many-colored shade; the sheen of the river; the trellised pavilions that hang on its side; the hum of waters, or the cheerings of some regatta, mingle with far obscurity and airy nothing; and then, as I ride, I sing the song of Anacreon Little, laying every tone to my heart, like a treasure and a spell: