No more fundamental change of habit can be imagined. This creature that has lived his whole life beneath the surface of the water, clinging to perilous brinks with his anchoring hooks, making and spreading his nets on slippery, submerged rocks, suddenly in a second changes to a true denizen of the air. For this he is now equipped with soft, brown, leathery wings, folded rooflike over his back; and with long, threadlike antennæ that continually touch all things within their reach with delicate inquisitiveness; and with long, slender legs, stockinged in ornate hairs of 10 which any moth might be justly proud.

His life in the air is short and sweet. Hiding himself during the garish day, he comes out in the shadowy night and seeks his mate. She may have been his nearest neighbor at the bottom of the stream, but she was nothing to 15 him then. Now she is all there is of life's happiness. As soon as he, after brief possession, loses her, he seems to realize there is naught else worth living for, and he dashes toward the first light that affords him opportunity for self-immolation. Does he perchance regard it as some 20 near star, whereon he may find another incarnation? With dazzled eyes he flings himself into it and speedily experiences the ecstasy of martyrdom, yielding with mad joy his body and delicate wings to brighten for one instant the sacrificial flame.

fry a crowd of little fishes.

Hydropsyche: pronounced hi-drő-sï'ké.

— another incarnation: a new bodily form.

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THE HUMBLEBEE

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, born in Boston in 1803, was a famous lecturer and writer. For the greater part of his life his home was in Concord, Massachusetts, where he died in 1882. Emerson taught the world many lessons; one of them, which had already been put into words by 5 Wordsworth, was that plain living and high thinking go well together.

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Burly, dozing humblebee,

Where thou art is clime for me.

Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone,

Thou animated torrid zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines:
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.

When the south wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze

Silvers the horizon wall,

And, with softness touching all,

Tints the human countenance

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With a color of romance,

And, infusing subtle heats,

Turns the sod to violets,

Thou, in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow, breezy bass.

Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone
Tells of countless sunny hours,

Long days, and solid banks of flowers;

Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found;
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and birdlike pleasure.

Aught unsavory or unclean

Hath my insect never seen;

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But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple sap and daffodils,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue,
And brier roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he passed.
Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,

Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
When the fierce northwestern blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep;
Woe and want thou canst outsleep;
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

Porto Rique

Syrian peace :

Porto Rico is a famous winter resort. the ideal of the philosophers of India and Syria is a state of inaction and blissful repose. - bil'berry bells: huckleberry blossoms.—suc'cory: a wayside plant bearing a blue flower. ag'ri mony: common herb with a spike of yellow flowers. - thy sleep: bees are usually torpid throughout the winter, waking to life and activity with the spring.

THE NEW ENGLAND WEATHER

MARK TWAIN

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (1835- ), better known as Mark Twain, is an American author who has a vigorous style and a true gift of humor.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there; 5 always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather 10 within four and twenty hours. It was I who made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens from all climes. I 15 said, "Don't do it; just come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that 20 he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to

As to variety, he