greatest beauty, the new fur having settled upon the body, and the new hair having covered the tail with its plumy fringe.

Did you ever watch a squirrel open and eat the contents of a nut? It is very curious and interesting. The little fellow takes it daintily in his fore-paws, seats himself deliberately, and then carrying the nut to his mouth, clips off the tips with his sharp chisel-edged incisor teeth. He then rapidly breaks away the shell, and after peeling the husk from the kernel, eats it complacently, all the while furtively glancing about him, ever in readiness to vanish from his post at any suspicious disturbance. The food of the Squirrel is not vegetable substances. Young birds, eggs, and various insects constitute a part of his food. He has the destructive habit of nibbling green and tender shoots that sprout upon the topmost boughs, thus stunting the growth of many a promising tree. He visits the farmers' corn-cribs, too, and thus renders himself somewhat obnoxious. All in all, however, he has his uses, and should not be wholly exterminated. Tender and juicy, he has always paid for his apparent despoliation, and his destruction of much injurious insect life rather favors his protection.

The Squirrel is a variable animal in point of color, the tint of its fur changing with the country it inhabits. It is easily tamed, and is a favorite domestic pet. It is said, however, that one should beware of purchasing so-called tame Squirrels, as they are often drugged with strychnine, under whose influence they will permit themselves to be handled. In some cases the incisor teeth are drawn, to prevent them from biting. It is sad that such cruel tricks of the vendors exist and cannot be prevented.

It is related that about 1840, during a season of great scarcity of mast, vast multitudes of Squirrels migrated from the eastern states to Canada, where food conditions were more favorable. They crossed the country in armies, swam rivers with their tails curled over their backs, sailing before the wind. It was a curious instance of rare instinct and self-preservation.

SECRETS OF AN OLD GARDEN.

THIS garden had some small fruit trees thickly covered with leaves, and a tangle of currant bushes and raspberry vines, as well as neatly worked rows of vegetables. There was also a thick clump of tall, feathery grass beside the paling.

It was well it had these small places of refuge, for it had many perils. Two cats, a white and a gray, patrolled the garden with silent and velvety tread; boys, who were not silent, used all kinds of small but deadly weapons on the street that ran beside it, and great heavy wagons rumbled up and down all day, making a great noise and dust.

But how many birds I have seen and heard there! Red-headed Woodpeckers tapped and called early in the morning on the tall telegraph pole at the corner, and flocks of Grackles, the Bronze, the Purple, and the Rusty Grackles, were fed from the fresh-turned earth. A Catbird hopped lightly in the shadow of the tool-house, and I suspect some Robins of foraging turn with their young families. Sparrows of all kinds dwelt there—flocks of yellow Ground Sparrows, Brown and Gray Sparrows, Clipping Sparrows. I saw one day the funniest Clipping baby with his chestnut cap pushed up into a regular crown almost too big for his tiny head, and the brightest black eyes peering at me, as he stood on a clod of earth. Flocks, also, of Goldfinches, glittering like small balls of gold, and Indigo Buntings, blue as the sky, held merry-makings there, and oh, the songs from morning until night! A Warbling Vireo sang so loud and so splendidly that we thought he must be some big bird of scarlet plumage instead of the wee wood-sprite he was; and little Wrens and little Indigo Birds fairly bubbled over with songs of joy.

The nests, the hidden nests, were the old garden's secrets, and the garden kept them well. There was a flutter of wings, the bird floated down, and was straightway invisible. Not the tip of a tail or beak was to be seen. Or up flew the bird and was as quickly lost in the thick screen of interwoven leaves overhead. There were certain gray birds so much the color of the dead wood on which they perched that they might have nested in full, open view, and yet have remained unseen until they moved. How the little birds did love this garden—the noisy street on one side, the close, dingy houses on the other, and how near its heart did the old garden keep the birds.

So many and such different birds—yet "not one of them is forgotten before God."—Ella F. Mosby.

BIRDS FORTELL MARRIAGE.

Some of the Prussian girls have an odd way of finding out which of a number will be married first. The girls take some corn and make a small heap of it on the floor, and in it conceal one of their finger rings. A chicken is then introduced and let loose beside the little heaps of corn. Presently the bird begins to eat the grain, and whichever ring is first exposed the owner of it will be the first to marry.

From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.	PRAIRIE HEN. ⅔ Life-size.	Copyright by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.

THE PRAIRIE HEN.

NUTTALL says that, choosing particular districts for residence, this species of Grouse is far less common than its Ruffed relative. It is often called Prairie Chicken and Pinnated Grouse. Confined to dry, barren, and bushy tracts of small extent, these birds are in many places now wholly or nearly exterminated. They are still met with on the Grouse plains of New Jersey, on Long Island, in parts of Connecticut, and in the Island of Martha's Vineyard. Mr. Nuttall was informed that they were so common on the ancient bushy site of the city of Boston that laboring people or servants stipulated with their employers not to have the Heath Hen brought to table oftener than a few times in the week. They are still common in the western states, but thirty years ago we saw vast numbers of them on the plains of Kansas. As there were no railroads then, they could not be sent to market, and were only occasionally eaten by the inhabitants. The immense wheat fields which have been sown for a number of years past have largely increased this species, where they assemble in flocks, and are the gleaners of the harvest.

Early in the morning Grouse may be seen flying everywhere, from one alone to perhaps a thousand together. They alight in the cornfields. "Look! Yonder comes a dozen; they will fly right over you; no, they swerve fifty yards to one side and pass you like bullets; single out your bird, hold four feet in front of him, and when he is barely opposite cut loose. Following the crack of the gun you hear a sharp whack as the shot strike, and you have tumbled an old cock into the grass. You have of course marked down as many of the birds as possible; let them feed an hour and then drive them up. They will rise very wild, and the only object in flushing them