Each female crocodile lays from one to two hundred eggs every year. These are about the size of a goose egg. Were it not for the Vulture, these animals might become so numerous as to render it almost impossible for man to inhabit the country where they are found.

The crocodiles are very cautious, and use every means in their power to secrete their eggs, so that no other animal shall find them. They come on the land, lay their eggs in the sand, and carefully cover them up, where they are left to be hatched by the heat

of the sun.

The Vultures seem to understand this; and perched on some tall tree, or towering cliff, they wåtch for these animals to come out of the water and deposit their eggs. No sooner has the crocodile returned to his element, than these voracious birds utter loud screams, as if to call all to share the feast; and then together they pour down upon the nest, and soon devour

LESSONS IN BOTANY, No. 1.

LEAVES.

BY FLORA MILFORD.

ILL within a few years, botany has not received the attention its importance demands. Its use as a science is very evident, and there is no study which awakens in the mind purer or more pleasurable emotions than this, and certainly none which leads us more directly to a contemplation of the wisdom and benevolence of the Framer of the universe.

All nature is now being clothed in new robes; tree and shrub are decked fresh from the Creator's hand; and, in admiring the general beauty of the present season, it may be profitable to consider more attentively the delicate mechanism of the vegetable world. In so doing, leaves will first attract

our attention.

Nearly all plants are supplied with leaves; but there is a great difference in their size, form, color, and situation. They are very large in the torrid zone and are there used for various purposes. They serve for umbrellas, fans, and for covering houses. In the temperate zones they are of the medium size, and in the frigid extremely small.

Leaves are seminal, primordial, and characteristic. The seminal leaves are those which appear first after planting, as in the bean and the morning-glory, and are shaped very differently from the others. The primordial leaves succeed the former, and prepare the way for the characteristic, or proper leaves. After the proper leaves are developed, the seminal leaves wither and decay. In some plants, however, the latter are entirely wanting.

Leaves are named from objects which they resemble in form. The

leaves of grass and most of the grains are linear, or narrow, with parallel sides; those of the peach, summersavory, and spider-wort, lanceolate; reniform, or kidney-shaped, as in the glechoma; cordate, or heart-shaped, in the morning-glory, the four-o'clock, wild violet, and many others; orbicular in the nasturtion; sinnate, with divisions and indentations in the sides, as the maple and the oak; sagitate, or arrow-shaped, in the sorrel; ternate, when the leaves grow in threes; some leaves are ovate, or egg-shaped.

The trellium is a beautiful example of the ternate leaf; it is rhomboid, and acuminate, or turned at the point.

Leaves are said to be lobed, when they are divided. The hepatica, or liver-leaf, is a good example, and may be found half buried in dead leaves. They are palmate when oblong segments extend from a space in the center of the leaf, as the castor-oil plant, the rhubarb, and passion-flower. They are digitate when the segments proceed directly from the petiole, or stem;

When notched at the edge, they are called serrate; crenate when scalloped; ciliate when fringed with hairs; glabrous when sleek and smooth; and glaucous when covered with a light green substance. Many leaves comprise several of these characteristics. The peach is lanceolate, serrate, acuminate, and glabrous. The catnip is cordate, serrate, and pubescent, or downy. The chestnut, lance-ovate, serrate, and acuminate.

In a few instances leaves are white, as the Indian pipe; but generally they are green, in all its various shades. In this we can behold an instance of the perfect harmony of created things; for there is no color so agreeable to our eyes as green-the very color with which the Creator has seen fit to clothe the vegetable world.

The upper and under surfaces of leaves vary much as to color; the former being darker than the latter. It is a fact worthy of notice, that trees which grow on high, dry land have darker leaves than those which grow in swamps. Thus, the oak, the chestnut, and the sugar-maple, have leaves of a dark green, while those of the ash, the willow, and the soft-maple, are of a lighter color.

The upper surface is smooth, and | lubricated in such a manner as to repel moisture, too much of which would be injurious. Drops may be seen on the under surface, while the upper is dry, as in the cabbage.

Leaves are but an extension of the bark of the plant, and by presenting a greater surface to the action of the air, light, and heat, perform a very important part in the economy of the plant.

From the petiole proceed veins, or small stems, through the leaf, each dividing and subdividing, till the leaf has the appearance of net-work. This skeleton, or frame-work, may be obtained by macerating the leaf in water, or from wet places in which the leaves of the preceding season have fallen. Silk-worms dissect leaves very neatly, leaving all these veins untouched.

This frame-work of the leaf is called the vascular system, meaning, as the name imports, full of vessels. The veins are transparent and tubular, as has been proved by immersing the end of the petiole in a colored liquid, and are very analogous to the circulatory vessels of the human frame.

Filling up the spaces in the vascular net-work, is the cellular texture. This is composed of cells, in some instances so exceedingly minute as to require the highest power of the microscope to be distinguishable. It is more or less soft and pulpy, and the leaves vary in appearance accordingly. It predominates in the ice-plant, the dew-plant, the common live-forever, and the houseleek, giving them their soft, fleshy appearance.

When the cellular texture occupies the plane of the vascular, the leaf is smooth, as in the beech and chestnut; when it is more amply developed, the leaf is rugose, or wrinkled, as in the dock and the sage.

Covering the leaf is the cuticle, or

skin, which is filled with innumerable pores called stomas. We now come to the use of leaves in aiding the growth of plants. Carbon forms the principal element of the vegetable world; but as this is a solid substance, it enters into the plant only in the form of gas. United with the oxygen of the air, it forms carbonic acid gas, a substance of a poisonous nature expired by animals, and which, if unconsumed, would soon deteriorate the atmosphere to a great extent.

Plants absorb carbonic acid gas, which, by the chemical action of light, is decomposed, the oxygen being thrown off to. vivify the atmosphere, the carbon retained to become the stem of the lily or the mighty oak of the forest.

A beautiful instance of this chemical change may be observed in the houseleek. Very early in the morning its thick leaves have quite an acid taste; but as the day advances, they lose this and acquire a sweetish, insipid taste. Oxygen is the great acidifying principle, and it is the predominance of carbon which causes the saccharine of plants.

Plants which grow in the dark, are slender, pale, watery, and deficient in carbon; instances of which may be seen in potato vines which chance to grow in a cellar, and in beets, turnips, and the like, which are buried during the winter, as is the custom with many.

Another fact worthy of notice, is the tendency of plants to seek the light. This may be observed in all plants, and it is a fact well known to those who cultivate house-flowers, that they require to be turned frequently, that they may grow straight. Some ascribe this to vital energy; but this is rather a vague reason, as we know not in what this vital energy consists. Perhaps the chemical agency of light is the cause.

THE BISHOP AND THE BIRDS.

A

BISHOP, who had for his arms two fieldfares, with the motto, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?" thus explained the matter to an intimate friend : Fifty or sixty years ago, a little boy resided at a village near Dillengen, on the banks of the Danube. His parents were very poor, and almost as soon as the boy could walk he was sent into the woods to pick up some sticks for fuel. When he grew older, his father taught him to pick the juniper-berries, and carry them to a neighboring distiller, who wanted them for making Hollands.

Day by day the poor boy went to his task, and on his road he passed the open windows of the village school, where he saw the schoolmaster teaching a number of boys of about the same age as himself. He looked at these boys with feelings of envy, so earnestly did he long to be among them. He was quite aware it was in vain to ask his father to send him to school, for he knew that his parents had no money to pay the schoolmaster; and he often passed the whole day thinking, while he was gathering the juniper-berries, what he could possibly do to please the schoolmaster, in the hope of getting some lessons.

One day, when he was walking sadly along, he saw two of the boys belonging to the school, trying to set a bird-trap, and he asked one what it was for? The boy told him that the schoolmaster was very fond of fieldfares, and that they were setting a trap to catch some. This delighted the poor boy, for he recollected that he had often seen a great number of these birds in the juniper-wood, where they came to eat the berries, and he had no doubt but he could catch some.

The next day the little boy borrowed an old basket of his mother, and when he went to the wood he had the great delight to catch two fieldfares. He then put them in the basket, and tying an old handkerchief over it, he took them to the schoolmaster's house. Just as he arrived at the door, he saw the two little boys who had been setting the trap, and with some alarm he asked them if they had caught any birds? They answered in the negative; and the boy, his heart beating with joy, gained admittance into the schoolmaster's presence. In a few words he told how he had seen the boys setting the trap, and how he had caught the birds to bring them as a present to the master.

"A present, my good boy!" cried the schoolmaster; "you do not look as if you could afford to make presents. Tell me your price, and I will pay it to you, and thank you besides."

"I would rather give them to you, sir, if you please," said the boy.

The schoolmaster looked at the boy who stood before him, with bare head and feet, and ragged trousers that reached only half-way down his naked legs.

"You are a very singular boy," said he, "but if you will not take money, you must tell me what I can do for you, as I can not accept your present without doing something for it in return. Is there any thing I can do for you?"

"Oh yes!" said the boy, trembling with delight; "you can do for me what I should like better than any thing else."

"What is that?" asked the schoolmaster, smiling.

"Teach me to read," cried the boy, falling on his knees; "oh, dear, kind sir, teach me to read!"

The schoolmaster complied. The boy came to him at all leisure hours,

and learned so rapidly that the teacher recommended him to a nobleman residing in the neighborhood. This gentleman, who was as noble in mind as in birth, patronized the poor boy, and sent him to school at Ratisbon. The boy profited by his opportunities; and when he rose, as he soon did, to wealth and honors, he adopted two fieldfares as his arms.

"What do you mean?" cried the bishop's friend.

"I mean," returned the bishop, with a smile, "that the poor boy was MYSELF."-Selected.

S Abel lay in his blood, and Adam stood by the slain and wept, there came a cherub from paradise, to the father of mankind, and placed himself silently before him; and his countenance was sad. Adam raised his face and said, Is this a picture of the race that is to spring from me? And shall brother's blood, shed by a brother's hand, ever stain the earth again?"

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The cherub answered, "Thou sayest it."

"Alas! with what name, then, shall we call the horrid deed?" asked Adam. With a tear in his eye, the celestial answered, "War!"

Then the father of mankind shuddered, sighed, and said, "And why must the good and righteous fall by the hands of the unrighteous?"

The cherub was silent.

But Adam continued in his complaint, and exclaimed, "What remains to me now, in my grief, but the bloodstained earth ?"

The cherub answered and said, "The look toward heaven." Then he vanished.

But Adam stood until the sun went down. And as the stars appeared on high, he lifted his arms toward Orion and the Wagon, and cried, "O ye glistening watchmen on the gates of heaven! why wander ye so silently? If it be permitted to a mortal to hear your voice, O tell me of the land that is beyond, and of Abel, my beloved!"

There was silence all around, and Adam fell on his face, and adored. And he heard in his heart these words, "Behold, Abel thy son lives!"

Then he went trusting away, and his soul was calm, and full of wisdom.

[Cherub, a celestial spirit; an angel. Paradise, a place of bliss; heaven. O-ri'on, one of the southern constellations; a cluster of stars. Wag'on, here also refers to a cluster of stars called Wagon.]

A RAT STORY.

WALTER COLTON, in his diary of a voyage to California, entitled "Deck and Port," relates the following capital rat story :

"I have always felt some regard for a rat since my cruise in the Constellation. We were fitting for sea at Norfolk, and taking in water and provisions; a plank was resting on the sill of one of the ports which communicated with the wharf. On a bright moonlight evening, we discovered two rats on the plank coming into the ship. The foremost was leading the other by a straw, which he held in his mouth.

We managed to capture them both, and found to our surprise, the one led by the other was stone blind. His faithful friend was trying to get him on board, where he would have comfortable quarters during a three years' cruise. We felt no disposition to kill either, and landed them on the wharf. How many there are in this world to whom the fidelity of that rat may teach a lesson ?"