By violence in your sports, I mean an undue turbulence and outrageousness which some of you introduce into your play, to the fear and disgust of all rational grown up persons who may happen to beheld your proceedings. What you should do in play, is to take such exercise as may improve the health of your bodies, and refresh and relax your minds after study. For these purposes many of the ordinary sports are quite adequate; and I can assure you that your seniors, so far from grudging you such sports, feel a sincere pleasure in seeing you engaged in them.

What they would wish to see you avoid, is, any improper extreme in your exertions, any dangerous exploit, and in general all those rough gambols which tend only to the destruction of your clothes, and to shock the senses of those who behold them. Grown up people often observe with pain that some of you take a kind of pleasure in spoiling and breaking. You soil, without compunction, the clothes which your mother and her servants have taken so much pains to clean, and grind down unnecessarily the shoes which your father, poor man, has to work so hard to obtain for you.

All this frivolity of yours, while it can be of no service to yourselves, produces real distress of mind to your parents, who have perhaps to suffer much hardship, and want many things they would like to have for themselves, in order that they may replace what you have so wantonly destroyed.

You should pause a moment in your fun, to reflect upon these things; and I feel very sure that the generosity which lies at the bottom of all your natures, however overlaid by recklessness and love of play, would BOON inform you how far you are wrong, and put you upon a better way for the fu

ture. You could not hesitate for a moment to give up rude and ungentlemanlike practices, which at once disgrace yourselves, and cause grief and embarrassment in a quarter where you have so much reason to desire to see the reverse.

I would also like to see some improvement in the way in which you conduct yourselves towards each other. Among many of you, there is a lamentable want of civility. You never hesitate to do or say any thing, from an apprehension of its being disagreeable to the feelings of your neighbors. Not that you do not both do and say many kind things to each other; the fault is, that you are not regularly governed by any desire of avoiding what is painful to your fellows.

Many of you are never withheld from outraging the feelings of a neighbor by any other consideration than that he is perhaps able to beat you at a fight. You respect him from fear of his blows-not, as you ought to do, from the idea that he is a person who has feelings to be injured as well as yourself. Hence, in the same degree that you truckle to your superiors in strength, you domineer over your inferiors. If you only think that a boy has not the vigor or the courage to pommel you, you are very apt to insult him by contemptuous language, if not also to full a-beating him for mere sport.

I have thus known boys of gentle disposition, and of good intellectual capacity, tyrannized over in the most shameful manner by boys who in reality were inferior to them in every respect, but were bolder and more wicked. I have known cases of such boys persecuted and pestered for months by their little tyrants, till their lives were almost a burden to them.

Now, my dear young friends, this is not only very wrong in a moral point of view, but, what will strike your minds far more strongly, it is highly ungenerous and shabby. Only think how you would like to be yourselves insulted or beaten, without provocation, by the boys who are bigger than you, or by men who are able to beat any of you-how cruel and unmanly you would consider such persons to be-how bitterly you would feel towards them! Surely, if it would be painful to you, it must be as painful to those whom you insult or beat; if you would consider your tyrant as cruel and unmanly, they whom you beat would be justifiable in thinking the same of you, and in execrating you with the same degree of bitterness.

And if you occasionally act the tyrant, how much must it add to your chagrin when you are yourself beaten or insultedhow much must it take away from your just cause of complaint, to recollect that you are yourself guilty of the same fault, whenever you can find a boy sufficiently weak or small for your purpose. The boy who habitually beats his inferiors, must also, on that account, look additionally contemptible in the eyes of his companions, when he is himself beaten.

An inoffensive boy would in such a case have the chance of being commiserated, or of having somebody to interfere and take his part; but every thwack bestowed upon a wretch who takes pleasure in thrashing bis lesser companions, must give a pleasure to the onlookers, and carry with it a pain and ridicule more than its own. Boys, in general, would do well to take an example in this, as in most other respects, from men. Among the latter, there prevails a mode of

speech and behaviour which bears the common title of politeness.

No man considers himself entitled, because he is stronger, to beat or use opprobrious language to his neighbor. If they were to do so, the whole would become wild savages once more, and there would be no rational pleasure in human life. But, by treating each other with respect and deference, even though in many cases, it be the result of no sincere feeling, the self-love of each man is preserved, and all are as good to each other, and do as much to promote the general happiness, as possible.

NATURAL PIETY.

BY RICHARD HOWITT.

A little boy in thoughtful mood,
Alone a woodland path pursued,
Beneath the evening's tranquil sky,
He thought not where, he knew not why.

He watched the sunset fade away,
Leaving the hills with summits gray;
He saw the first faint stars appear,
And the far river's sound came near.

The birds were hushed, the flowers were closed,

The kine along the ground reposed;
All active life to gentle rest
Sank down, as on a mother's breast,

All sounds, all sights, ef earth and sky
Came to his ear, and to his eye,
Until from these absorbed, forgot,
They were, and he perceived them not.

Though from his home and friends apart,
No sense of fear disturbed his heart;
Though round him were dark shadows
thrown,

He did not feel himself alone.

ANECDOTES OF THE ANT.

In a room next to mine, which had been empty for a long time, there was upon a window a box full of earth, fit to keep flowers in. As there had been no flowers in it for a long time, it was covered with bits of plaster and rubbish, that had fallen from the top of the house. The window looked to the south-was sheltered from the windand a little way off there was a granary of corn; so that altogether it was one of the best places for ants to live in. If you or I were going to build a house, we should try to find just such a convenient spot of ground.

As I was very fond of flowers, I planted. a tulip-root in the old box, hoping to have the pleasure of seeing it grow; but while I was doing this, I found three nests of ants. As I looked at the little creatures running up and down, and seeming so happy and so busy, I could not but think it would be a sad pity to disturb them for the sake of a flower: so I took away my root, and determined to watch my little ants every day; and true it was, that they amused and pleased me more than all the flowers in the world could have done!

I made it my business to procure for them all sorts of conveniences. I took out of the box every thing that might be troublesome; and I went very often to pay them a visit, at all times of the day, and sometimes I got up in the night and watched them by moonlight. I always found them at their work; when all other animals appeared to be at rest, still these little creatures were running about, and going up and down as busy as ever: one would think they never slept.

The chief business of an ant is to collect corn in the summer for food in the winter. I believe every body knows that ants take

their grains of corn under ground in the night-time, and bring them out in the day to dry in the sun. If you have ever observed an ant-hill, I dare say you have seen these little hillocks of corn lying out by the side of the hill. As I very well knew that ants were in the habit of doing this, I was a good deal surprised when I found that my ants did just the contrary; they kept their corn snugly under ground all the daytime, while the sun was the hottest, and brought it out (like simpletons, as I thought) only to lay it out in the moonshine; but I soon perceived that they had the best reasons for this.

There was a pigeon-house at no great distance, and the pigeons were continually flying to this window, and if by chance a single grain of corn was to be found, they would fly off with it in a moment; so the ants were wise to hide their treasure from the sight of these thieves,

But as soon as I found out how it was, I determined to release them from the fear of such troublesome neighbors, and I fastened some bits of paper upon sticks, like little flags, and stuck them round the box; and whenever I saw a pigeon bold enough to be coming near my flags, I went to the window and made a great shouting noise, and frightened them so much, that, after once or twice, they gave the matter up, and never came again.

Soon afterwards, to my great surprise and pleasure, I saw the little ants venturing to bring out a grain or two of their corn by daylight; and in a little while, finding it was untouched, and that they had nothing more to fear, they brought it all out with the same regularity as other ants.

There is in every ant's nest a straight hole about half an inch deep, and then it goes

down sloping into a place where they keep their corn, as we do in a granary. The corn that is laid up in those little granaries would shoot under ground and begin to grow, which would not answer their purpose at all; so they take care to prevent this by biting off all the buds before they lay it up.

But there is another mischief that might attend their corn-it might swell with the damp of the ground, and grow mouldy and unfit for use; to prevent this, therefore, they take the utmost pains to prepare a sort of dry earth, and when the corn is laid up in this, it will keep as long and as dry as in the farmer's best granary. They are, therefore, as careful to keep the earth dry as the corn. Their method of packing it together

under ground is this: they first of all spread the earth, and then they lay the corn upon it, and then they cover the corn with some more earth, and every day they take it all up to the top of the nest, and lay it out to dry; and if you watch, you will see that, first, every ant comes up with a load of earth, till, in about quarter of an hour, a heap of earth is made. Then they come up each carrying a grain of corn, and when they have made a heap of that, they bring up more earth, which shows plainly in what order it is laid together.

THE CAMELOPARD. This curious quadruped, of which on.” single species is known to exist, seems to be one of the sports of nature. Nor is it to be found but in the interior recesses of for ests, or on the wildest plains in the remote parts of Africa. The ancients, however, were acquainted with it; for it is mentioned by Pliny, Oppian, and Strabo. In many respects it is allied to the deer and antelope tribes. The head is like that of the deer, armed with two round horns, each tufted with a brush of coarse black hair; and its legs and feet resemble those of the same animal, but with this remarkable difference, that the fore legs appear to be nearly twice as long as the hinder; which, however, is occasioned merely by the extraordinary height of the shoulders compared with the thighs.

A short erect mane extends from the head nearly to the origin of the tail. Its height, when full grown, from the top of the bead to the fore feet, is about seventeen feet; the skin 18 beautifully spotted with brown upon