which you had not suspected, until the sudden dismay and scattering among its members produced by your turning the old stone over! Blades of grass flattened down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been bleached and ironed; hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous, or horny-shelled-turtle-bugs one wants to call them; some of them softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine watches. 3. There, too, are black, glossy crickets with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young larvæ, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the serpent-like writhings of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned, and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs-and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. 4. Next year you will find the grass growing tall and green where the stone lay; the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole; the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through their glorified being. 5. The stone is ancient error. The grass is human nature borne down and bleached of all its color by it. The shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious face or a laughing one. 6. The next year stands for the coming time. Then shall the nature, which had lain blanched and broken, rise in its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. Then shall God's minstrels build their nests in the hearts of a new-born hu manity. Then shall beauty-Divinity taking outlines and color-light upon the souls of men as the butterfly, image of the beatified spirit rising from the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub, which would never have found wings had not the stone been lifted. Cole op'ter oùs, having wings covered Lär vae, insects in the first stage after leaving the eggs; caterpillars; grubs. Ôr'gan isms, organized beings having, or composed of, organs. LESSON V. THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A SPIDER. BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, Ireland, in 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation, he studied divinity, law, and medicine successively, and met with signal failure in all. In 1755 he began a wandering career, making his way over half of Europe, with no capital but his flute and his engaging manners. He picked up considerable learning at the various Universities, and made those close studies of life which served him so well when he began to write. At the age of thirty, he returned to England and began a life of literary work in London, where his beautiful and original genius soon asserted itself and brought him fame. He threw off an incredible amount of work within the space of a few years, producing histories, poems, plays and fiction with equal facility, and almost unvarying success. He wrote two highly successful comedies, The Good-Natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer; those exquisite poems, The Traveler and The Deserted Village, and a domestic novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, which immediately attained, and still holds, a wonderful popularity. He died at London, 1774. OF all the solitary insects I have ever remarked, the spider is the most sagacious, and its actions to me, who have attentively considered them, seem almost to exceed belief. This insect is formed by nature for a state of war, not only upon other insects, but upon its own kind. For this state, nature seems perfectly well to have formed it. Its head and breast are covered with a strong natural coat of mail, which is impenetrable to the attacks of every other insect; and the under part of its body is enveloped in a soft pliant skin, which eludes the sting even of a wasp. 2. Its legs are terminated by strong claws, not unlike those of a lobster; and their vast length, like spears, serves to keep every assailant at a distance. Not worse furnished for observation than for an attack or defense, it has several eyes-large, transparent, and covered with a horny substance, which, however, does not impede its vision. Besides this, it is furnished with a forceps above the mouth, which serves to kill or secure the prey already caught in its claws or its net. 3. I perceived, about four years ago, a large spider in one corner of my room making its web, and, though the maid frequently leveled her fatal broom against the labors of the little animal, I had the good fortune then to prevent its destruction, and, I may say, it more than paid me by the entertainment it afforded. In three days the web was with incredible diligence completed; nor could I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to exult in its new abode. 4. It frequently traversed it round, and examined the strength of every part of it, retired into its hole, and came out very frequently. The first enemy, however, it had to encounter, was another and much larger spider, which, having no web of its own, and having probably exhausted all its stock in former labors of this kind, came to invade the property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible encounter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have the victory, and the laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole. 5. Upon this, I perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy from his stronghold. He seemed to go off, but quickly returned, and when he found all arts vain, began to demolish the new web without mercy. This brought on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist. Now then, in peaceable possession of what was justly its own, it waited three days with the utmost patience, repairing the breaches of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could perceive. 6. At last, however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, and struggled hard to get loose. The spider gave it leave to entangle itself as much as possible, but it seemed to be too strong for the cobweb. I must own I was greatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in less than a minute weave a new net round its captive, by which the motion of its wings was stopped, and, when it was fairly hampered in this manner, it was seized and dragged into the hole. 7. In this manner it lived, in a precarious state, and nature seemed to have fitted it for such a life; for upon a single fly it subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the nest, but when the spider came out in order to seize it as usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. When the wasp was at liberty, I expected the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable, wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new one begun, which was completed in the usual time. 8. I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider could furnish; wherefore, I destroyed this, and the insect set about another. When I destroyed the other also, its whole stock seemed entirely exhausted, and it could spin no more. The arts it now made use of to support itself, now deprived of its great means of subsistence, were indeed surprising. I have seen it roll up its legs like a ball, and lie motionless for hours together, but cautiously watching all the time; when a fly happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out all at once, and often seize its prey. 9. Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and resolved to invade the possession of some other spider, since it could not make a web of its own. It formed an attack upon a neighboring fortification, with great vigor, and at first was as vigorously repulsed. Not daunted, however, with one defeat, in this manner it continued to lay siege to another web for three days, and at length, having killed the defendant, actually took possession. 10. When smaller flies happen to fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but very patiently waits till it is sure of them; for upon his immediately approaching, the terror of his appearance might give the captive strength sufficient to get loose; the manner then is to wait patiently till, by ineffectual and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted all its strength, and then he becomes a certain and easy conquest. 11. The insect I am now describing lived three years; every year it changed its skin, and got a new set of legs. I have sometimes plucked off a leg, which grew again in two or three days. At first, it dreaded my approach to its web; but at last it became so familiar as to take a fly out of my hand, and upon my touching any part of the web, would immediately leave its hole, prepared for a defense or an attack. LESSON VI. SANDALPHON. BY H. W. LONGFELLOW. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825, in the same class with Hawthorne, and was the next year appointed Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, being allowed the customary leave of absence that he might make the tour of Europe. In 1835 he received a similar Professorship at Harvard, and visited Europe a second time. His first volume of prose, Outre-Mer, appeared in 1835, followed by Hyperion, also prose, in 1839. In the same year his first volume of poems was published, under the title, Voices from the Night. Among his best known works are The Spanish Student, Evangeline, The Song of Hiawatha, Miles Standish, and The Divine Tragedy. His writings, both in prose and verse, are finished with the most consummate art, and breathe the purest sentiments. His sympathies are universal, his judgment is always accurate, and he never touches a subject without making a positive addition to our gallery of ideal portraits and poetic imagery. He has a true conception of the high mission of the poet, and, in song of matchless melody, teaches and inspires while he delights. AVE you read in the Talmud of old, H in the In the Legends the Rabbins have told, Of the limitless realms of the air, Have |