could; much more frightened at you, than you were at him. I should have thought you had been more of a man, Edward, than to have been afraid of a harmless snake.

Why, our servant, John, when I went out with him last week, showed me a blind worm, and said it would sting any one dreadfully.

He was mistaken; the blind worm has no sting, and cannot do harm to any one. I have known some affected young ladies much alarmed at the sight of a toad or a frog; and ready to go into hysterics at the formidable appearance of a mouse or a spider. Nothing can be more silly than such conduct. Pray, Edward, call reason to your aid, and do not at all resemble these foolish persons.

Will you tell me all about the snake?

It lays a chain of eggs of twelve, or more, in a dunghill, or melon or cucumber bed, which are hatched by the heat of the next spring. The snake creeps out of its skin annually, and has a new one. When it has eaten a good meal of frogs, or other reptiles, it

falls into a torpor, and does not eat for some time; it then awakens, and goes in search of its prey.

But will not the viper sting, Papa?

It will; but salad oil, immediately applied, is said to be a certain remedy. Their eggs are hatched within them. Mr. White informs us, that he once surprised one basking in the sun; having killed, and opened it, fifteen young ones crept out of their parent; the shortest of them were seven inches. 'They issued," he says, "into the world with the true viper spirit about them; twisting and wriggling about, setting themselves up, and gaping very wide, when touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and defiance." Vipers have been kept six months without food, and yet have been lively. Their flesh has been used for medicinal purposes.

But how can they catch them?

They fasten a cleft stick over their heads, and catch hold of their tails; and so put them into a bag. There,—Papa,—did you not hear the Cuckoo? *

* Cuculus Canorus.

No;-listen,-yes, I now hear him. I wondered we had not heard him before; I am always pleased to hear this bird of the spring.

Like most of our birds, he

sings only to the end of June.
fruit, and the eggs of smaller birds.

He lives on insects,

I never hear

this singular bird without thinking of the pretty lines of Logan; and repeating them in thought, if not audibly ;

"Delightful visitant! with thee

I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet,
From birds among the bowers.

The school-boy wand'ring thro' the wood,
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts, the new voice of spring to hear,

And imitates thy lay.

Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear:

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year.

O could I fly, I'd fly with thee,
We'd make, with joyful wing,

Our annual visit o'er the globe,

Companions of the spring!"

Under what class is the cuckoo placed in natural

history?

It is in the order of Picæ; whose characters are, a bill, smooth and more or less bending; the nostrils bounded by a small rim; the tongue short and pointed; and the feet and toes formed for climbing.

Does the hen cuckoo sing? And where does she build her nest? And how many eggs does she lay? Not so fast, Edward: one question is enough at a time. No, the hen has scarcely any voice. And she does not build any nest. She lays her eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, water-wag-tail, titlark, red-breast, and in some others; more commonly in that of the hedge-sparrow. Her egg is about the same size; but, in colour, very much like that of the house-sparrow. She lays a number of eggs; one in a nest, generally, but sometimes two.

But how do you know they lay more than one or two? Very well; because the hen cuckoo has been shot, and opened; and many eggs have been found in her. But how is it that the cuckoo does not sit on her eggs and hatch them herself?

I cannot tell you. They leave the country about