  The Yellow Perch; Perca flavescens. This fine fish, which belongs to the family PercoidÆ, of the division Acanthopterygii, or thorny-finned, is the common perch of the waters of the United Slates; ranging from the extreme east to the extreme west of the continent; from the streams and pools of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to the feeders of Lake Superior and the northern tributaries of the Canadian lakes. To the northward, it is not found in the rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean or Hudson’s Bay, and its southern limit is ill-defined, and can scarcely be ascertained, except by personal inspection; since the denizens of the southern waters have been disfigured by appellations, local, provincial, and most unscientifical, so barbarous as to defy the most intelligent inquirer. The title of the division Acanthopterygii, or thorny-finned, is founded on the principle that every genus and sub-genus thereof has one or more of the fins supported on, or preceded by, strong, sharp spines, capable of inflicting a severe wound, and forming a very efficient weapon of defense, so that the boldest and most voracious of fishes rarely venture to seize them. All the genera have two dorsal fins—the first, or foremost, of which is invariably supported on spines, as opposed to soft branched rays; while the second, or hindmost, is of soft texture, preceded by one or more hard spines—two pectoral fins, both soft-rayed—one ventral, and one anal, each of which is often preceded by one or more spines—and one caudal, or tail fin, which is the main propelling power of the animal. On the number of the hard spines supplementary to the soft fins, are founded the These latter influences frequently modify the same fish in different streams, even of the same region and neighborhood, and flowing over soils apparently identical, to such an extent, that the casual observer not unnaturally believes them to be distinct varieties, if not species, and can be with difficulty convinced, on the immutable evidences of structural sameness. This fact has led, in a great measure, to the complicating and confounding the science of Natural History, by the undue multiplication of names, species, and genera, where no specific differences exist; rendering the science infinitely difficult to the beginner, and causing the unlearned to undervalue the lore of the naturalist, and to deny the reality of all scientific distinctions whatsoever. On differences of structure, such as the situation and texture of the fins, the number of spines or soft rays in each, the form of the gill covers, the character and position of the teeth, perfect reliance may be placed, as indicating unchangeable specific characteristics, by observation of which the educated naturalist will name at a glance the species, genus and subgenus of any fish, unseen before; and will unerringly determine his habits, his food, and in some degree his habitation. Thus of the Percoid family we distinguish the subgenera Perca, perch proper, from Gristes and Centrarchus, to which are referred the types black basse of the lakes, and the little rock basse of the St. Lawrence basin, by the fact that the PercÆ have one spine to the ventrals and two to the anal. The Gristes one to the ventrals and three to the anal. The Centrarchi one to the ventrals and six to the anal. And in like manner, by the number of spines supporting the first dorsal, we are enabled to pronounce on the truth or untruthfulness of the many subdivisions of the perch family, as predicated by the fishermen of various regions, and insisted on by credulous naturalists, such as Dr. Smith, of Massachusetts, whose book is rendered absolutely valueless by the readiness which he displays in adopting every local legend concerning new varieties, and classifying new species; until, if we believe him at all, we must believe that every several stream and pool from Maine to Minnesota has its own distinct variety of perch; nor of perch only, but of trout, and, more or less, of every finny tenant of the waters. The truth appears to have been at length firmly established, and to be this—that there is but one clearly defined and distinct perch, perca flavescens, the yellow perch, found in the United Stales—the perca fluviatilis, common river perch of Europe, does not exist at all in American waters, though it is so closely connected with our fish that a casual observer would pronounce them identical—that the supposed subgenera of perca granulata, or rough-headed perch, perca argentea, silver perch, perca acuta, or sharp-nosed perch, and perca gracilis, said to be peculiar to the small lake of Skaneateles, in the interior of New York, are not sufficiently made out as permanent varieties; and that the variations of color from dark green, and greenish brown, to bright yellow, silvery, and something nearly approaching to orange, are merely local, casual, and individual differences, and not general, permanent, specific distinctions. The following luminous description of this game and excellent fish is borrowed from Dr. Richardson’s Taura-boreali-Americana, or natural history of the Northern Regions of America, including parts of the United States, and the British Provinces as far north as to the Arctic Ocean. The specimen from which it was compiled was caught at Penetanguishine, on the great Georgian bay of Lake Huron, but will answer for fish of this genus taken in any part of America which they may chance to frequent; so small is their variation in any respect but that of color, which appears to vary in obedience to no fixed law of locality or latitude, except that it appears to me that of the fishes taken in estuaries and at the mouths of tidal rivers, the color is deeper and the tints fade from cerulean black along the dorsal outline to olive green on the flanks, with a silver belly; while in clear lakes and fresh streams, they change from olive-green on the back to bright golden yellow on the sides and belly. THE YELLOW PERCH. Color.—General tint of the back greenish-yellow; of the sides golden-yellow with minute black specks; and of the belly whitish. Nine or ten dark bands descend from the back to the sides, and taper away toward the belly; the alternate ones are shorter, and on the tail and shoulders they are less distinctly defined: the longest band is opposite to the posterior part of the first dorsal fin, on which there is a large black mark. Form.—The body is moderately compressed, its greatest thickness being somewhat more than one half of its depth. Its profile is oblong, tapering more toward the tail, which is nearly cylindrical: its greatest depth is at the ventrals, and rather exceeds one-fourth of the total length, caudal included. The head constitutes two-sevenths of the total length, and its height, at the eye, is equal to one-half its length from the tip of the snout to the point of the gill-cover. The forehead is flat, but appears depressed, owing to the convexity of the nape. The snout is a little convex. The orbits are lateral, distant more than one of their own diameters from the tip of the snout, and more than two diameters from Teeth.—The intermaxillaries, lower-jaw, knob of the vomer, and edge of the palate-bones, are covered with very small, straight or slightly-curved, densely-crowded teeth (en velours.) The vault of the palate, posterior part of the vomer, and the pointed tongue, are smooth. Gill-covers.—The preoperculum is narrow; its upper limb rising vertically forms a right-angle with the lower one; and its edge is armed with small spinous teeth, those on the lower limb being directed forward. The bony operculum terminates in a narrow sub-spinous point, beneath which there are three denticulations, with grooves running backward from them. An acute-pointed membranous flap prolonged from the margin of the suboperculum conceals these parts in the recent fish. The edge of the interoperculum and posterior part of the suboperculum are minutely denticulated. The edges of the humeral bones are slightly grooved and denticulated, the denticulations being more obvious in some individuals than in others. Scales.—There are sixty scales on the lateral line, and twenty-two in a vertical row between the first dorsal and centre of the belly. The scales are rather small, their bases truncated and furrowed to near the middle (striÉes en Éventail) by six grooves corresponding to eight minute lobes of the margin. A narrow border of the outer rounded edge is very minutely streaked, producing teeth on the margin, visible under a lens. The length and breadth of a scale, taken from the side, are about equal, being two and a half lines. A linear inch measured on the sides or belly, longitudinally, contains twelve scales, the scales on the belly having, however, less vertical breadth. On the back an inch includes seventeen or eighteen. The asperity of the scales is perceptible to the finger, when it is drawn over them from the tail toward the head. The lateral-line is thrice as near to the back as to the belly, and is slightly arched till it passes the dorsal and anal fins, when it runs straight through the middle of the tail. It is marked on each scale by a tubular elevation, which is divided irregularly by an oblique depression. Fins.—Br. 7—7; D. 13—1 " 13; P. 14; V. 1 " 5; A. 2 " 8; C. 175-5. The first dorsal commences a little posterior to the point of the gill-cover and to the pectorals: its fourth and fifth rays are the highest: the first ray is slender and not half the height of the second; the last ray is so short as to be detected only by a close examination. The second dorsal commences a quarter of an inch from the first, the space between them being occupied by two or three inter-spinous bones without rays: its first ray is spinous, and is closely applied to the base of the second, which is thrice as long distinctly articulated, and divided at the tip: the remaining rays are all divided at their summits, but at their bases the articulations are obsolete. The pectorals originate opposite to the spinous point of the operculum; they are somewhat longer than the ventrals, which are attached opposite to the second spine of the first dorsal. The anal is rounded: its first ray is one-fourth part shorter than the second, both being spinous: the succeeding rays are articulated and branched, the five anterior ones being longer than the second spine, the others becoming successively shorter: its termination is opposite to that of the second dorsal. The caudal is distinctly forked, its base is scaly, the scales advancing farther on the outer rays and covering one-third of their length. Such is the general description of the fish throughout the country at large, but great allowance must be made for accidental and local variations of color, some specimens being light-green, backed and barred with black, with silvery bellies, others exactly as portrayed above, others nearly orange, and approaching in some degree to the splendor of the goldfish. As I have observed, no fish is more general than this in every description of waters throughout his range in the United States. From the largest rivers, so low down their channels that the waters begin to be brackish, to the smallest mountain rivulets; from the mill-pond, and small, clear mountain tarn, to the vast expanses of Huron, Michigan and Superior, they are omnipresent and numerous. They spawn in March, each female excluding a vast quantity of spawn. So many as 992,000 ova having been taken, as it is stated by Mr. Brown in his “American Angler’s Guide,” though he does not annex his authority, from a single female. They may be taken during every month of the year with the hook, being bold biters and among the most voracious of all fishes, devouring the spawn and young fry of their own species with savage avidity, and being among the most deadly foes to the trout preserves, owing to the rapacity with which they ransack the spawning beds. They are in the main a lively and active fish, roving about in small bands or shoals, sometimes swimming high and near the surface, leaping merrily at the flies and smaller water insects, and sometimes, especially in clear, rapid scours of gravel-bedded rivers, sweeping along the bottom gathering the small, red brandling worms, of which they are very fond, caddises, and other water reptiles, as well the spawn of such fish as use these localities. The larger fish will, however, often select stations, such as the lee of a large stone at the tail of a ripple, especially under the umbrage of trees growing on the bank, or among the piles and timbers of mill-dams or sluice-ways, whence they sally out like the pike or trout on any passing prey with great velocity and accuracy of aim. Still even these are decidedly gregarious, as one is never found singly in a hole, such places being invariably frequented by such band as it will liberally support, who rarely stray beyond its limits, and prey, for the most part This propensity is taken advantage of by the angler, since, when he has once struck upon a well-stocked haunt, while the fish are in the humor to bite, he will be very apt, if patient and skillful, to take the whole shoal without the loss of a single fish. The growth of the yellow perch is slow, and appears to be proportioned pretty accurately to the size and character of the waters which he frequents. In small, swift running brooks, or little spring-ponds or mill-dams, he rarely exceeds a few inches in length and a few ounces in weight, partaking generally of the green and silvery type of the fish. In estuaries and large rivers, in the pellucid tarns and lakelets, which are dotted so beautifully through all the uplands of the eastern and middle states from Maine to Pennsylvania, in the vast expanses of the great northern lakes of Canada, in the giant rivers of the west, they attain far more rapidly to a great size, three or four pounds being a run by no means unusual, and individuals being not unfrequently taken up to five, six and seven pounds, when they are very firm, fat, and in capital condition for the table. They may be caught in all months of the year. Mr. Brown considers that they “may be had in the largest quantities and in the finest condition from May to July;” but from my own experience, which has been limited principally to the lakelets of Maine, to Greenwood or Wawayanda lake, in Orange county, New York, to Lake Hopatkong, desecrated into Brooklyn pond, in Sussex county, New Jersey, and to some of the north-eastern streams and ponds of Pennsylvania, I should say that late in the autumn— When the maple boughs are crimson, And the hickory shines like gold, And the noons are sultry hot, And the nights are frosty cold; They bite with greater freedom, show more sport, and are better on the table than at any other season of the year. The yellow perch is a bold, nay! a savage biter, and a greedy feeder; it is even recorded of him that he has been known to strike at his own eye, casually torn out by the point of the hook, which is to me by no means incredible. Securely weaponed by the sharp palisade of arrowy spines bristling along his back, and by the stout jagged thorns protruding in advance of his ventral anal fins, when of any considerable size, he fears neither the tremendous rush and shark-like jaws of the savage mascalonge, nor the terrible agility and dauntless daring of the namaycush and siskawity, those vast lake trouts, but feeds himself, a lesser tyrant of the waters, on whatever crosses his path of havoc. A light, stiff, ten-foot rod, with a small reel, and twenty-five or thirty yards of line, with a small cork float, and a proper sinker for bottom fishing, is the best implement; and the best baits for this method are the common ground-worm or the little scarlet brandling. The latter particularly in rapid channels and scours. Cheese pastes are also used, and at times successfully, but I do not advocate their use, but the most certainly deadly of all baits is the paste made from the preserved roe of any fish which frequents the waters you are to fish. Trout-roe, in lakes or rivers haunted by that gamest and best of all the inhabitants of the water, kills unerringly. In brackish water shrimp beats the world for perch, remembering that you fish near to or upon the bottom. Perch, especially when of large size, may be trolled for as pike, with the hind legs of a frog, or with any small fish on a gorge hook. But in my opinion the prettiest of all modes of catching them is to rove for them with the live minnow. For this purpose you take a fine, clear, gut leader, with a No. 9 Limerick hook whipped on at the tail, and an inch and a half above it, and back to back to the tail hook, a second one size smaller than the first. The upper should be hooked securely into the lower jaw of a moderate sized minnow, and the lower into his dorsal fin, care being taken not to pierce his back, when he will swim about naturally and gayly for many hours, if not taken by a fish, and if carefully released without laceration, will survive the operation. A small cork, or, what is better, quill-float, is necessary to this method, and a few shot, sufficient to sink the bait to within three inches of the bottom. When a bite is felt, a little time should be given before striking; when struck, the perch is surely taken, for though he pulls hard for a short time he has neither the fierce courage nor the wily craft of the trout, but succumbs after a few brief struggles. A reel is necessary, and the float often dispensed with by veterans in the art. The following very graphic extracts, on perch fishing in the waters of the Niagara river and Lake Erie, are from the pen of probably the best piscatorial writer of the United States, long an esteemed correspondent of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, from whose lucubrations I have borrowed largely in my larger works on “Fish and Fishing,” and to whom I gladly record my obligation: “The Yellow Perch. This beautiful and active fish is almost “In the spring, as soon as the ice has left the streams, the perch begins running up our creeks to spawn. He is then caught in them in great plenty. About the middle of May, however, he seems to prefer the Niagara’s clear current, and almost entirely deserts the Tonawanda, and other amber waters. You then find him in the eddies, on the edge of swift ripples, and often in the swift waters, watching for the minnow. As the water-weeds increase in height, he ensconces himself among them, and, in mid-summer, comes out to seek his prey only in the morning and toward night. He seems to delight especially in a grassy bottom, and when the black frost has cut down the tall water-weeds, and the more delicate herbage that never attains the surface is withered, he disappears until spring—probably secluding himself in the depths of the river. “The back fin of the perch is large, and armed with strong spines. He is bold and ravenous. He will not give way to the pike or to the black bass; and though he may sometimes be eaten by them, his comrades will retaliate upon the young of his destroyers. “The proper bait for the perch is the minnow. He will take that all seasons. In mid-summer, however, he prefers the worm, at which he generally bites freely. He is often taken with the grub, or with small pieces of fish of any kind. “He is a capital fish at all times for the table. His flesh is hard and savory. He should be fried with salt pork rather than butter, and thoroughly done. He makes good chowder, though inferior for that purpose to the black bass or the yellow pike. “A difference of opinion exists among our most tasteful icthyophagists, as to whether this fish should be scaled or skinned. Let me tell you how to skin him. Take a sharp-pointed knife, and rip up the skin along the back, from the posterior extremity of the back fin, on one or both sides of it, along its whole length—then take the fish firmly by the head with the left hand, and with the right take hold of the skin of the back near the head, first on one side and then on the other, and Before quitting this subject, I will simply point out that the excellent little pan fish taken in salt water, near the turn of the tide, in most of our large rivers, and usually known as white perch, or silver perch, is not a perch, but the little white, or the little red bass. And herewith, good-night; and good luck to the gentle friends and good fishermen all who read Graham.
——— FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS. ——— In October, 1848, I went over to the Island of Capri, some twenty miles from Naples, to enjoy a rustic festival. Our party consisted of some Englishmen and some Italians; the latter, being in the service of the government, had a fixed limit to their leave of absence. When the morning arrived that was appointed for the departure of our Italian friends, we accompanied them to the shore, where they made their arrangements for the passage back to the main-land. There was a strong west-and-by-south wind roaring round the island, and the sea looked dangerous; but, in Naples, where there is no career for a young man out of government employ, an official must not trifle with his post. The preparations, therefore, for the launching of the boat went on. It was one of those wide-bottomed boats, commonly used in the port of Naples, upon which the stranger starts out for a moonlight row to Posilippo, or betakes himself with his portmanteau and his carpet-bag, or with his wife and her pill-box full of a few things to the steamer. Such boats are not made for riding on a stormy sea. The men preparing to put out that morning were our two friends the officials, and two boatmen. One of the passengers was hailed by the captain of a good strong bark, upon the point of starting. “Come with us, Raffaelluccio; it will be madness to sail out in that cockle-shell, through such a sea!” Raffaelluccio, a delicate youth, replied that he was no coward. He had come in the boat, and might go back in the boat, with the Madonna’s The little harbor at Capri is so sheltered from certain winds, that there is often a deceptive smoothness in its waters. It was only by looking out to sea that one detected, on that wild October morning, how the waters writhed under the torture of the wind. Far as the eye could reach the sea was covered with those smaller storm waves, called, in the phrase of the country, pecore; these, as the day advanced, swelled into great billows, cavalloni, which came rolling on upon our little island, and dashed violently against the coast of Massa and Sorrento. The boat had been shoved off, and had returned for some article, left accidentally behind. A group of weather-wise old sailors thronged about the foolhardy crew, in vain urging them to wait for fairer weather. They put out to sea again, and made straight for the cape under the summer palace of Tiberius. This is a well-known point, which boatmen often seek when they desire to catch a direct wind for their passage to the main-land. The gale that had been blowing round the island appeared to pour out from this point its undivided force, and beat the sea with a strength almost irresistible. We saw the mast of the little boat snapped the moment it had reached the cape, and the crew put back, not to await calmer weather, but to seek another temporary mast, and start again. No threat or persuasion could detain the Italians, who feared to exceed their term of leave. A rude mast was set up, and again the boat started, leaping across wave after wave. We saw no more of it. “I watched it for some distance,” said the captain of the barque, which had started at the same time. “Their mast bent as though it would break with every puff of wind, and the little sail fluttered like a handkerchief upon the waves. In a moment it disappeared, and we knew that our foreboding had proved true.” The rest of the tale I had from the lips of the black-bearded official, the sole survivor; and a wilder tale of human passion does not often fall within the bounds of sober truth. The old mariner, at starting, had been placed at the helm as the most competent man of the party; but there was an alarming difference between the eddies, currents, and billows at the cape, and the smooth waters of the Bay of Naples. A monstrous cavallone appeared in the distance; leaping, roaring, foaming, it was close upon their quarter; its crest overhung them; in an instant, said my informant, they were swallowed up. The boat was overturned; but the crew—struggling desperately for life—rose with it once more to the surface, clinging to its bottom. In their last agony they glared upon each other, face to face, among the beating waves, and the loud execrations of his companions were poured passionately on the ancient mariner, whose want of skill was cursed as the fatal cause of their despair. The hold of the poor old fellow, weak with age and faint with emotion, had not strength to bear him up amid the tossing of the waters, and as his grasp relaxed, the others watched his weakness with a fiendish satisfaction. “It is some consolation,” exclaimed one, “to see you die first, fool as you are!” He did not hear the latest maledictions, but went down in the deep sea. The next who died was Raffaelluccio, upon whose daily work the daily bread of a mother and three sisters depended. “I am stiff with cold, and can hang on no longer,” he said to his companion. “Get on my shoulders,” was the answer of the stronger man. And so he did, and so he died: the living man with the dead weight upon him grappling still for life, and drifting before the storm. The young boatman, the other survivor, trembling himself upon the brink of eternity, crept round to the dead body, and having robbed it of a watch and chain and other valuables, pushed it from the shoulders of his friend into the sea. So there remained these two men, clinging to the boat, and gazing on each other anxiously. The thought had crossed the mind of the young man that, if they lived until they should be thrown ashore, the surviving passenger would require that he should deliver up the watch and other valuables to the family of Raffaelluccio. He may not have taken them with a design of theft. He probably saw that the dead body cumbered his companion, and committed it from a good humane motive to the sea, having removed the jewelry. But to retain possession of the property, his conscience did not bid him shrink from murder of which no eye of man would ever see the stain. An unexpected blow would silence his companion, and leave him on the boat to drift to land, a sole survivor, quietly made richer by the wreck. “I read it in his eyes,” said my informant. “The devil was in them, and I watched him well; but a heavy sea raised his side of the boat—that was his opportunity, and immediately he struck a heavy blow upon my head. If he was the younger I was the stronger, and he summoned me to struggle for my life, or for that chance of life which either of us had upon the gulf of waters. There was a horrible wrestling! I am the only survivor. “All that day, and through a stormy, pitch-dark night, I lay tossed about, almost senseless, in the Bay of Naples. But before dawn on the second day, my boat was cast ashore at Torre dell’ Annunziata, and there locked between two rocks. I had just strength to crawl to the Coast-Guard house, in which I perceived that lights were twinkling. I was spurned. My papers were demanded. “Faint as I was, in time I found it possible to make the good officials understand my case, and excuse the production of credentials from the fishes. They took me in, and treated me with Christian kindness. My looks had frightened them: my face was bloated, and my eyes protruded like those of a lobster.” The mother of Raffaelluccio was living in Capri, and I was there when the news came back of her son’s fate. In the darkness of an October night, the ruined family—the bereaved mother and her daughters—mounted to their house-top, and turning toward the sea, shrieked wildly for the son and brother whom it held from them. LE PETIT SAVOYARD.(FROM THE FRENCH OF GUIRAUD.) ——— BY WILLIAM DOWE. ——— Well, go to France, poor little child! yes, go. My love for thee is worthless: I am poor. People enjoy elsewhere; here we endure: Go child, ’tis for your good; ’tis better so. When this poor arm was strong to labor once, Refreshed, rewarded when my darling smiled, Who then had dared advise me to renounce The dear caresses of my child? But I am widowed; Strength departs with Joy. Now sick and sad, I know not what to do. ’Tis vain to beg; our friends are paupers too. Leave thy lorn mother; leave this poor Savoy; Go where God takes thee—go, my cherished boy! Still, far away, think on this homestead lone; Remember it; and this last hour, and this; A mother blesses her beloved one With her embrace; my blessing with my kiss! Now, do you see yon oak? I think I may Go so far with thee; four long years are o’er Since with your father, when he went away, I walked there too; but he returned no more. Were he but here to guide thee forth, ’twould be Less sorrow to my heart to bid thee go. Thou art not ten years old; so helpless—oh! How I shall pray to God, my child, for thee! Unless He aid, how can thy small feet tread Through a cold world, without a mother’s care? She would, at least, instruct thee how to bear; Poor little child! O, why have I no bread? But ’tis God’s will, and we must humbly bow; Don’t weep to leave me, little hapless thing! Take to their palace-gates a cheerful brow, ’Twill grieve thee, oft, to think of me, I know; But to amuse the rest, thou still must sing. Sing, ere life’s bitterness for thee shall come. Now take thy wallet and that poor marmotte; Beguile the way with my old songs of home, Sung to thy cradle in this mountain cot. If I had strength, as in the time gone by, I’d hold thee by the hand and lead thee on; But I should fail, before three days were done; Yes, thou shouldst leave me soon behind, and I— Where I was born, my son, I wish to die. Hear thy poor mother’s last advice, and take The warning, if thou wouldst be blest of Heaven; The poor man’s only wealth is what is given. Ask of the rich; he gives for Jesu’s sake. Thy father said so too; Be thou more fortunate, my boy; adieu! The sun had fallen beneath the neighboring steep, And “we must part,” the mother said at last— On through the oaks the little wanderer passed, Turning, at times; but did not dare to weep. ——— [To the above I have presumed to make a pendant.] THE DYING SAVOYARD. Cold, cold is the storm, with its darkness and danger! Take pity, dear friends, on a poor little stranger: To-night is a feast in your village, I’m told, While shuddering and foodless I sob in the cold. You all are in gladness; but I am in sorrow, And must rest on the ground, to be dead on to-morrow. Oh! dreary to die with my home at a distance, And all those I love too far off for assistance; Around me the snow-flakes are falling and flying, And the sad light of evening is darkening and dying; The winds freeze my blood as they mournfully sweep, And icicles hang on my rags as I weep. Ah, pity my poverty, pity my years, And pass not a child, in his hunger and tears; And see, the companion and friend of my lot, As forlorn as myself, my poor, pining marmotte; He is shivering and hungry, and nestling in quest Of the warmth that is nearly gone out of my breast. O, never again shall a wandering boy See the dear cottage homes and the skies of Savoy, Or hear the gay herd-song, the falling of rills In the fresh-swelling air of her beautiful hills; Oh, where are they now, those old mornings of joy? They are lost, they are lost, to the wandering boy! Oh, never again shall my fond mother kiss me; How dearly she loved me—how much will she miss me! And how must she mourn, my affectionate mother, For her lost little child, and she has not another! Long, long may she weep at the door of her cot, Ere she sees me return with my merry marmotte. So the Savoyard mourned, the poor child, in his sorrow, Undoomed to go forth at the voice of the morrow, With his friend, the marmotte, he had died ere the day; And they scooped them one grave in the snow where they lay; And a slight cross of lath rises over the spot Where the Savoyard sleeps with his mountain marmotte.
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