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soon as he can fly, goes to his work without a single lesson, and yet understanding it perfectly.

This is very wonderful; but God teaches the birds their lessons, and his teaching is perfect. Perhaps the most curious mechanics among the birds, are the Sociable Weavers, found in the southern part of Africa. Hundreds of these birds, in one community, join to form a structure of interwoven grass, (the sort chosen being what is called Boshman's grass,) containing various apartments, all covered by a sloping roof, impenetrable to the heaviest rain, and increased year by year, as the increase in numbers of the community may require.

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"I observed," says a traveller in South Africa, a tree with an enormous nest of these birds, to which I have given the appellation of Republicans; and, as soon as I arrived at my camp, I despatched a few men with a wagon to bring it to me, that I might open the hive and examine the structure in its minutest parts. When it arrived, I cut it to pieces with a hatchet, and saw that the chief portion of the structure consisted of a mass of Boshman's grass, without any mixture, but so compact and firmly basketed together as to be impenetrable to the rain. This is the commencement of the structure; and each bird builds its particular nest under this canopy, the upper surface remaining void, without, however, being useless; for, as it has a projecting rim and is a little inclined, it serves to let the water run off, and preserves each little dwelling from the rain.

The largest nest that I examined was one of the most considerable I had anywhere seen in the course of my journey, and contained three hundred and twenty inhabited cells, which, supposing

a male and female to each, would form a society of six hundred and forty individuals. Such a calculation, however, would not be exact. It appears, that in every flock the females are more numerous by far than the males; many cells, therefore, would contain only a single bird. Still, the aggregate would be considerable; and, when undisturbed, they might go on to increase, the structure increasing in a like ratio, till a storm, sweeping through the wood, laid the tree, and the edifice it sustained, in one common ruin.”

About Labor and Property.

ALL the things we see around us belong to somebody; and these things have been got by labor or working. It has been by labor, that every article has been procured. If nobody had ever done any labor, there would have been no houses, no cultivated fields, no bread to eat, no clothes to wear, no books to read, and the whole world would have been in a poor and wild state, not fit for human beings to live happily in.

Men possess all things in consequence of some person having wrought for these things. Some men are rich, and haye many things, although they never wrought much for them; but the ancestors, or fathers and grandfathers, of these men, wrought hard for the things, and have left them to their children. all young persons must not think that they will get things given to them in this way; all, except a few, must work diligently when they grow up, to get things for themselves.

But

After any one has wrought to make a thing, or after he has a thing given to him, that thing is his own, and no person

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must take it from him. If a boy get a piece of clay, and make the clay into a small ball or marble to play with, then he has labored or wrought for it, and no other boy has any right to take it from him. The marble is the property of the boy who made it. Some boys are fond of keeping rabbits. If a boy have a pair of these animals, they are his property; and if he gather food for them, and take care of them till they have young ones, then the young rabbits are his property also. He would not like to find, that some bad boy wished to take his rabbits from him! He would say to the bad boy, "I claim these rabbits as property; they are mine. You never wrought for them; they are not yours." And if the bad boy still would take the rabbits, then the owner would go to a magistrate, and tell him of the bad boy's conduct, and the bad boy would be punished. All things are the property of some persons, and these persons claim their property in the same way that the boy claims the marble that he has made, or the rabbits that he has reared. It is very just and proper that every person should be allowed to keep his own property; because, when a poor man knows that he can get property by working for it, and that no one dares to take it from him, then he will work to have things for his own use. If he knew that things would be taken from him, then he would not work much, and perhaps not at all. He would spend many of his days in idleness, and live very poorly.

When one person wishes to have a thing which belongs to another, he must ask permission to take it, or he must offer to buy it; he must never, on any account, take the thing secretly, or by violence, or by fraud; for that would be stealing, and he would be a thief. God

has said, "Thou shalt not steal;" and every one should keep his hands from picking and stealing. Some boys think, that, because they find things that are lost, they may keep these things to themselves. But the thing that is found is the property of the loser, and should be immediately restored to him without reward; it is just as bad as stealing to keep it, if you can find the owner.

My First Whistle.

Of all the toys I e'er have known,
I loved that whistle best;

It was my first, it was my own,
And I was doubly blest.

'T was Saturday, and afternoon,
That school-boys' jubilee,
When the young heart is all in tune,
From book and ferule free.

I then was in my seventh year; The birds were all a singing; Above a brook, that rippled clear, A willow tree was swinging.

My brother Ben was very 'cute,

He climbed that willow tree, He cut a branch, and I was mute, The while, with ecstasy.

With penknife he did cut it round,
And gave the bark a wring;
He shaped the mouth and tried the sound,-
It was a glorious thing!

I blew that whistle, full of joy-
It echoed o'er the ground;
And never, since that simple toy,
Such music have I found.

I've seen blue eyes and tasted wines-
With manly toys been blest,
But backward memory still inclines
To love that whistle best.

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IT has been remarked, that, as mankind apply themselves to various trades and pursuits, some being carpenters, some house-builders, some hunters, some fishermen, so we find that the animal tribes appear to be severally devoted to various professions. And as we find among men bold, open pirates, who rob by day, and secret thieves, who plunder by night; so, among animals, we find those that seem to have taken up similar vocations.

The eagles, for instance, are daylight robbers; and it is wonderful to observe, how well adapted they are for the life they are designed to lead. They are strong of wing, with powerful talons to grasp their prey, and a sharp, hooked beak, calculated, like the knife of a butcher, to cut their food in pieces. Their eye is keen and long-sighted, so that they can mark their victim afar off; and their flight is swift, so that they may strike down upon it with certainty.

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through the air on a noiseless wing, and come upon their victim unheard and unsuspected. If you have ever seen an owl at evening, or during a cloudy day, (for it is seldom that they venture abroad in the sunshine,) you must have noticed, that he skims along as if he were almost as buoyant as a soap-bubble. How different is this from the whistling rush of the pigeon, or the whirring flight of the partridge!

Among the owls there are at least fifty kinds; and, taken all together, they are a most curious and interesting family. Among these, the largest is the great eagle owl, which is found in Europe. Its home is among the deep recesses of mighty forests, and the clefts of rocks amidst the mountains. From its lonely retreat, where it reposes in silence during the day, it issues forth, as the dusk of evening throws a yet deeper gloom over the dark pine forest or rocky glen, to prowl in quest of prey. On silent wing it skims through the wood, and marks the fawn, the hare, or the rabbit nibbling the herbage. Suddenly wheeling, it sweeps upon the unsuspecting victim, and, if not too large, bears it off in its talons. Other and less noble game is also to be reckoned as its prey, such as rats, mice, squirrels, and frogs. These are swallowed entire, after being merely crushed into a mass by the efforts of the bill; the bones, skins, feathers, or hair, rolled into a ball, are afterwards ejected from the stomach.

In our American forests, we have an owl very similar to the one I have described, both in looks, size, and habits. These large owls seldom approach the abodes of men; but the little barn owl is more familiar. He often takes up his residence in a barn, and, hiding in some nook by day, sallies forth at night, making prey of such little animals as he

can find. He is very useful in destroying rats and mice. Mr. Waterton says that he has seen one of these little owls bring a mouse to its nest of young ones, every twelve or fifteen minutes during the evening. It is also stated, that this bird will sometimes take up its residence in a pigeon-house, and live there, without giving the pigeons the least disturbance, or even taking their young ones.

The ancients called the owl the bird of wisdom, because he looked so sober and solemn. Many superstitious people now-a-days look upon him with foolish dread. The owl is frequently mentioned in the Bible; but the most interesting allusion is that of Isaiah, chap. xiii., in which the prophet foretells the coming destruction and desolation of Babylon, then a great and powerful city. His words are, "Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there." This prophecy has been literally fulfilled. Many years after the time of Isaiah, Babylon was destroyed, and the place became a scene of desolation. Travellers tell us, that now the place is surrounded with caverns, which are the refuge of jackals and other savage animals, and that in these cavities there are numbers of bats and owls.

Origin of "The House that Jack Built."

THE following curious article shows that the idea of the popular legend of "The House that Jack built," is of ancient date, and derived from the Jews. That famous story is in fact modelled after an ancient hymn, conceived in the form of a parable, sung by the Jews at

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