and carry these to their tiny brothers and sisters in the nest, feeding them as carefully and lovingly as if they were their parents."

A WATER-WORM THAT BUILDS A HOUSE. "THERE is a curious little fellow called a caddisworm," says D. C. B., "and he lives in the water

and builds his own house. The picture shows him in the bottle of water swimming among plants. The piece of paper leaning against the glass gives near its top a side view of him, without his house; below there is a front view of this dwelling, and,

next, a back view of the little chap with the bumps and hooks that dove-tail him securely in his home. At the corner of the paper is a plan showing how he builds, crossing the straws and splinters near their ends, and binding them together with a fine silk, which he spins from himself.

house, which is very light and gives him no trouble. "In the circle you see him floating along in his This is lucky for him, because, if he were to be long without his covering, some hungry fish would surely eat him up. But the house looks too prickly to be comfortably swallowed.

"In time, the caddis-worm comes to anchor, closes up his front door with a strong silken net, and becomes a pupa, with hooked jaws. These jaws bite through the net, and the pupa gayly swims away. By and by, it rises to the top of the water, where its stiff skin breaks open and forms a kind of boat, and in the boat appears a slender little fly with beautiful wings. One of these flies is shown on the table-cloth in the picture, near the foot of the bottle.

"I once had a caddis-worm in my aquarium, and gently took away his house. Then I gave him some tiny bright-hued straws. At the close of that same day, when I looked at him, I found that the busy little fellow had built himself a new house with the tinted straws, and it was as gay and bright as Joseph's coat of many colors."

Now, my hearers, who has seen a live caddisworm? Lock sharply for one in future, and, when

found, let your Jack hear about it.

BRUNEL'S MOST IMPORTANT JOB.

DEAR MR. JACK: You may be interested in hearing about a curious piece of engineering, by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great English bridge-builder and engineer, by whom the Box Tunnel and the "Great Eastern" steam-ship were made. These were great achievements, but what I am going to tell you may be counted the most important work of his life, for if it had failed he would have lost his life.

One day, he was amusing his children by making a gold coin disappear and re-appear by sleight of hand. At length, he tossed the coin with a sudden swift movement into his mouth; it went a great deal farther than he had meant, however, and slipped into his windpipe, and almost choked him.

While the surgeons were hesitating, and calculating as to the best point for cutting into the windpipe, Mr. Brunel suddenly took his case into his own hands, as a mere piece of engineering. He had found, while coughing and choking, that, when his body and head were in a certain position, the coin lay edgewise in the windpipe; so he caused a platform to be made on which he could lie in that position, his head down. On this platform he stretched himself, and had his body rigidly fixed. Then he made an assistant strike blow after blow sharply on the foot of the platform. As he had anticipated, each stroke jerked the gold-piece, and it slipped by its own weight along the windpipe. It required many hammer-taps, but at length the coin rolled through the throat, into the mouth and out upon the floor.

A CAT-TELEGRAPH.

G. M. K.

IN a certain Belgian town, cats are being trained to run with messages, after the manner of carrierpigeons; only, of course, the cats go afoot.

Your Jack is glad that a new way has been found to keep puss out of mischief, and give her something to do instead of catching birds. And there's another encouraging side to this scrap of news; boys in Belgium must be growing gentler in their ways with cats, for people would never trust a cat alone with a message where the boys were ordinary boys--or, at least, like some boys I 've heard of.

Here is what the author of the poem says in reply: It is too much to say of Lapland in general that its people do not see the sun "for more than half a year." But we know there are many places, even among the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where the sun rises so late and sets so early that the day is much shorter than in ordinary localities near, and we can easily conceive how, in a time when the sun rises but a little way above the horizon, and that for only a few hours out of the twenty-four, a range of hills, in the direction where it rises, must prevent its being seen from the dark side of the hills, and from the valleys, "for more than half a year."

An article in "Chambers' Journal" entitled "A Winter in Lapland," on which the poem was based, says: "A Night that begins in early October, and ends in June," and "I had actually seen the sun go down into an obscurity that was to last the better part of a year." This was written of Kublitz, a village where the writer remained through one of these winter nights, and his account of it is exceedingly interesting. JOY ALLISON.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Last spring papa got sister and me four prairie-dogs. They like sweet cake, and mamma gives us a piece now and then for the dogs. They eat it just as sister and I do, sit straight up, and put it into their mouths with their fore-paws. They don't eat hazel-nuts, because their teeth are not strong enough, and then, too, hazel-nuts don't grow near western prairie-dog towns. They never drink water, but appear to be afraid of it, and never leave their holes on damp or rainy days. They pile the dirt around. Prairie-dogs look just like wee bears, but they don't stay in their burrows all winter. Up to this time, ours have been out every pleasant day, that is, 'most every day, because our Nebraska winter days are nearly all pleasant. From your friend,

GEORGE H. PALMER.

We have received a letter from a good friend of ST. NICHOLAS finding fault with our Frontispiece in the January number, saying that while it illustrates the meaning which is usually given to the old nursery jingle

"Hark! hark! The dogs do bark; the beggars are coming to

town;

Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in velvet gowns," -it does not illustrate the historical meaning of the rhyme. He adds: The couplet is not descriptive of a band of ordinary mendicants, but of the entrance into a town of a company of English strolling players, who, when the rhyme was made, and long after, were in British law not only classed as vagabonds, but were debarred the rites of Christian burial.

The most trustworthy writers upon the drama have used this couplet to illustrate the low condition of those early actors of old England, who were not permitted to bear the distinguished title of "His Majesty's Servants. The motley garments of "the beggars," that is, of the actors, are fully described in the last line, and the "velvet gown" distinctly indicates that the wearer was no ordinary almsseeker. These strolling actors, of the early period indicated by the

couplet, strolled from town to town, played in barns, and charged no regular price for admission to the play, but accepted gifts, or, in other words, took up a collection" from the spectators.

Both by the statutory law and the unwritten law of custom, these strollers were "vagabonds" and "vagrants," and they were as widely known by the name "beggars" as by any other. Yet they were not maimed, halt, blind, nor wretched, but very merry "vagabonds,' and the memory of them is very pleasant to me. L. C. D.

The letter is printed as an act of justice to the strolling players, and because it will interest our older readers.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Mamma and Papa, and all of us children, have fine times making words for each other to spell. Each letter is on a little piece of card, and we shuffle them all together. Here are some that we had the most fun over-my aunt brought them to us from North Elba, in the Adirondack Mountains: LA SEI: Papa made out this word. NCO TAES RS; my brother found out this one. And here is another which they say was made by the Earl of Beaconsfield one evening for the Queen, and which she was delighted with after she made it out. BALYERTA. We haven't got it out yet. I send these to you, because I think some of the boys and girls may like to try them. They are good English words in common use. I wish some of the ST. NICHOLAS boys and girls would send some good ones to the "Letter-Box."-Your affectionate reader, C. D.

ELLA B. AND OTHERS.-All readers of ST. NICHOLAS, whether they are subscribers or not, are welcome to send letters to the "Letter-Box." But there is room only for the best of those letters which are likely to interest the greatest number of readers.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: This evening the girl turned the gas bracket so that the flame came close to the sash and under the window-shade, throwing a bright light into the yard. And then she went into the yard to take down the clothes from the line. Of course, the gas flame set fire to the shade, which blazed up. Our Beta, a little girl of ten years, was in a front room and saw the blaze through the doorway. So she ran, got upon a table, tore down the shade, threw it on the floor, and poured water on the shade until the fire was out. When asked how she came to think of doing this, she said: "I read about the Practical Fairy in the January ST. NICHOLAS, and thought I could do as she did." We all think it was brave of her, and that the other ST. NICHOLAS girls will like to know about it.-Yours truly,

B. T.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Please tell me whether or not the story of "How the Elephants turned back" in the December number of ST. NICHOLAS is true, and where an account of it can be found. LOUIS L. CURTIS.

The story is given in McClintock and Strong's "Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature," under the head of" Maccabees-Third Book."

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: In looking over your pages I saw in the March number of 1876, an account of the "Man in the Iron Mask,' and that his name had never been found out. Not long ago, I saw in a paper an account that at last he had been found out, in this

n.anner:

One day, it is said, a few days before his death, the door of his cell being open, a certain Jean Aumont received furtively, during a few moments' absence of the jailer, a letter from the "Iron Mask," which, for precaution's sake, doubtless, had been written in indecipherable characters. The prisoner, on remitting it to Aumont, began to explain the method of reading it, when suddenly the jailer returned. Jean Aumont kept the letter until his death, being unable to read it, and then it passed into the hands of his son Auguste Aumont, who, after great labor, managed to read it. This is the letter: " If my sad captivity is necessary for the happiness of France, grant me, Lord, the strength to endure it. Louis Louvais and ye, their accomplices, whose names I may not mention, God will one day judge you most severely. What crime have I committed, unless that of being born a French prince? I have offered you to quit France, to go and live and die far away, unknown. Was it not enough? Alas! royalty seems to me very terrible, when it thus renders kings criminals. Oh, Louis, hast thou then no remorse when thinking of the sufferings that I endure? May these lines escape one day from my prison and belong to history. From my tomb, I will bless him who will have transmitted them. May God bless the beloved France-such will my prayer ever be.

You who

THE remarkable clock mentioned in the article about "Wonderful Automata," in the February number, was the first of its kind made in America; but J. Willie Stone sends a description of a later American clock, even more wonderful than this, and made in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, by Stephen D. Engle. The clock has forty-eight moving figures; but its description is printed at great length, and so only the gist of it can be given here. The whole machine looks like the front or façade of a cathedral, with three square towers, the middle tower being the tallest, about ten feet high.

The towers spring from a base, which is eight feet wide and rather more than four feet high. The sides of this lower part are ornamental, but the middle has a small globe representing the earth and some complicated astronomical mechanism.

In the lower half of one of the side towers is an organ, and, whenever this plays, two figures appear, with harp and pipes, in the upper half of the tower.

In the lower part of the other side tower a mechanical fife is hid, and in the upper section are twenty figures of soldiers of Revolutionary times, including Moll Pitcher. When the fife plays, the troops march boldly on to take part in some battle-that of Monmouth, perhaps.

The middle tower contains in the lower part a clock, to show the time, the tides, the seasons, the changes of the moon, the months, and the days of the week. At the top of this tower, a Roman sen

tinel keeps marching to and fro behind battlements, facing about at each end of his beat.

In the middle parts of the tower are more figures, some in niches, some shut in by doors that lead into a small open court, and others upon a balcony. These figures act as follows:

When the hour-hand approaches the first quarter, Father Time reverses his hour-glass and strikes "one" on a bell with his scythe, a bell inside the clock responding, and Youth appears. Three minutes previous to the half-hour a bell strikes, followed by the music of the organ. At the half-hour, Time reverses his glass and strikes two on the bell, a bell inside responding. Then Youth passes and Manhood appears. One minute after this, a chime of bells is heard, a folding door opens in the lower porch and another at the right of the court, and the Savior comes out. Then the Apostles appear in procession, Peter in the center and Judas in the rear. As the first one approaches the Savior, a folding door opens in the balcony above, and the three Marys come out in single file and stand-Mary, the sister of the Virgin, on the left, the Virgin Mary in the center, and Mary Magdalene on the right. As the Apostles come opposite the Savior, they turn toward Him. The Savior bows to them, except to Peter, who turns in the opposite direction; then a cock on the right flaps his wings and crows, and Satan appears above at a window, and a figure of Justice raises her scales. Judas, as he advances, does not look upon the Savior; Satan follows immediately after on foot, and goes back the same way he came, to appear again above at another window. Satan appears six times at different places. At the third quarter, Father Time strikes three with his scythe and turns his hour-glass, when three bells respond.

Then Manhood passes and Old Age comes into view. Three minutes previous to the hour, the organ peals again, and as the hour arrives, the skeleton figure of Death strikes its number with a human thigh bone on a skull. One. minute after, the procession of the Apostles again takes place. Besides these two regular movements, the Apostles' procession may be made to occur twice on the first quarter, and twice again on the third, making, in all, six processions

each hour.

P. J. B.-The "Legend of the Ground-hog," which you ask about, is explained in the following letter from the author of the poem in the March number:

The ground-hog, a bright, wary little rodent, chiefly abounds in the Southern States. He makes his winter quarters in a deep hole which he burrows into the ground, and in this he sleeps throughout the cold season, far below the reach of frost. His only sustenance during this time is the sucking of his paw, which, curiously enough, is always the left one. On February 2, never sooner, he comes out from his hole, and, if the day should happen to be a bright one, so that he sees his shadow, he is frightened, and hurries back to his hole, there to stay six weeks longer. If the day is dull, and he cannot see his shadow, he keeps out until the cold weather sets in again. Now, as to his foretelling the weather. February Second is Candlemas Day, and tradition says that if Candlemas Day is bright and sunshiny, six weeks of hard winter weather are sure to follow,-if the contrary, winter will speedily break up. This tradition became linked with the habits of the ground-hog, and what is called Candlemas Day, according to English tradition, is called Ground-hog Day in this country. WILLIAM M. PEGRAM.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: My cousin had such a curious dream a few weeks ago, that I thought I would write and tell you about it. She dreamt there was a sign on the moon telling the people that the earth was wearing out and that they must fly to Venus. It also told them to make feather belts and fasten them around their waists so they could fly. Just as every one was flying up to Venus, my cousin's belt broke, she fell to the earth and woke. She is eleven years old, and so am I.-Your reader, H. S. GORDON, JR.

EASY SQUARE-WORD.

1. A POINT in the heavens, directly under the place where we stand. 2. To worship. 3. Birds of the pigeon family. 4. An Empress of Constantinople. 5. To put into place again.

DIFFICULT DOUBLE ACROSTIC. THE heads united spell a poet's name;

The tails set forth a work that earned him fame.
First cite an actress great, Old England's pride;
A famed philosopher set by her side.
Add to the pair a fiery Spanish saint;
A great Italian, next, who loved to paint.
Choose then a holy and a festive day;

And name a king of France long passed away.
A Yankee chief call next, who, long ago,
Fought oft and bravely 'gainst the British foe.
Take what can not be paired howe'er you strive;
And what is never less than fifty-five.

For tenth a Jew who bears o'er England sway;
Eleventh, a prophet-priest of David's day;
For twelfth, a writer old, a wonder, too:
Thirteenth, a Queen in "fourteen ninety-two."
The next is less than nothing and yet more;
The last a Roman bard in days of yore.

PICTURE PUZZLE.

D. W.

EACH of the following examples gives part of the name of some mountain or range of mountains; every other letter being represented by a dash. With each example is given the name of the continent or country to which the name belongs.

1.-i-i-a-d-a-o; Eastern Africa. 2. r-r-t; Armenia. 3.-0-g; Western Africa. 4.-t-a-; Algeria. 5. --s; Central Europe. 6. -r-1; Russian Empire. 7. -o-i-a-; Afghanistan. JACK.

LETTER SYNCOPATIONS.

[TO SYNCOPATE is to shorten a word by taking away from the middle of it a letter, or letters, or a syllable.]

1. Syncopate kingly and leave genuine. 2. Syncopate a soldier's reward, and leave a necessary part of every day's living. 3. Syncopate firm, and leave old. 4. Syncopate speedy, and leave an inva5. Syncopate a ditch, and leave a European fresh-water fish. 6. Syncopate grim, and leave a substance that oozes out of trees.

sion.

My first is in come, but not in go; My second in arrow, not in bow; My third is in mountain, not in hollow; My fourth is in pain, but not in sorrow; My fifth is in rosin, not in gum; My sixth is in toy, but not in drum. Of a bird of song here find the name, And the isle from which the song-bird came.

D. W.

GORDON L. WARNER.

NUMERICAL ENIGMA.

We are two words often heard at this season, and we have twelve letters in all. A little girl once said of us that, if she should happen to be caught in any 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, they and the mud they make would be sure to 12, 8, 4, 5 7, 10, 11 9, 3, 1, 2, 6.