We are so accustomed to the apparently lifeless condition of the vegetable world between autumn and spring, that we do not realise the marvellous nature of the phenomena which it embodies. The vital sap ceases to circulate in the cells; one part after another seems to perish, and all the functions of the plant are at a standstill. Yet this outward death is but a sleep, and spring-time brings a sure and certain resurrection.

Even more wonderful is the periodic lethargy which overtakes those nonmigrating animals whose supply of food is cut off by the approach of winter, and who have not the faculty of storing up a supply for the future. We call it hibernation, and a special term is needed to denote it. It is not sleep, for the sleeper is roused by noise or pain, whereas the hibernating animal is insensible to both, so that a limb may be amputated without consciousness. The former soon awakes at the call of hunger, and needs as full a supply of air as when active; the latter nearly ceases to breathe, and is seemingly indifferent to all the demands of appetite. Our native bats retire in autumn to secluded caverns or mouldering ruins, and there, hanging by their claws to ledges of rock or brickwork, sink into a state of profound insensibility, until the insect races on which they feed have once more begun to tenant the surrounding atmosphere. In their hidden retreats, the hedgehog and the dormouse pass the winter months in a similar condition.

The supposed hibernation of birds is probably an error of observation, but when we come to the reptile class we find it to be the rule with all that are natives of this country. In my own vivarium, frogs, toads, blind worm, and tortoise are all now fast locked in winter slumber, and I shall have no need to hunt for flies, beetles, or worms on their behalf until March, or perhaps April.

Snails are great hibernators-those which inhabit ponds and streams bury themselves in the mud at the bottom; their brethren on land form roostingplaces under moss or dead leaves, retiring into their shells, and closing up the mouths thereof with double or triple doors of hardened slime, until the merry spring-time shall come again.

It is, however, in the various tribes of the insect world that these adjustments are most conspicuous, because the relations of animal to plant are more specific. The winter habits of butterflies and moths in their "fourfold state are best known; but very much remains to be investigated as to other insect orders. (A hint for you, my dear Fred.) Considering that caterpillars have a store of fat on which to live while reposing, if necessary, just as the chrysalis is nourished in summer or autumn from a similar supply, there is not much difficulty in understanding how these imperfect insects pass the winter. But a large number of species hibernate in their perfect state, and these exhibit symptoms such as I have described among quadrupeds. They cease to breathe, and apparently lose both sensation and appetite, and though some are partially roused by a mild winter's day, very few indeed are tempted to quit their retreats. Only when the food-plant on which their eggs are deposited is in leaf, do they emerge from their retirement, and hasten to fulfil the law of increase.

It is a most remarkable fact, which you may verify for yourself, that

insects which are restricted to a particular tree or plant never appear till that plant has foliage. Thus, the eggs of the Gipsy moth, though laid in August, are not hatched till the elm is in leaf, on or about the first week in April; while for the oak-feeding larvæ of the beautiful Crimson Underwing we must wait three or four weeks later.

My letter is longer than I had intended, but the subject is a wide one. Even now I have said nothing of the instincts which lead some animals which do not really hibernate to store up provisions for the winter season. But my chief object is to set you thinking and investigating in the country around your great city, and to lead you to recognise in the phenomena of this otherwise unattractive season, the great principle of ADAPTATION, which pervades the providential arrangements of the great Author and Sustainer of life. Yours ever,

B. B.

AM

THE GREAT MASTER.

my own master!" cried a young man, proudly, when a friend tried to dissuade him from an enterprise which he had on hand; “I am my own master!”

"Did you ever consider what a responsible post that is ?" asked a friend.

"Responsible-is it ?"

"A master must lay out the work which he wants done, and see that it is done right. He should try to secure the best ends by the best means. He must keep on the look-out against obstacles and accidents, and watch that everything goes straight, else he must fail.” "Well."

"To be master of yourself you have your conscience to keep clear, your heart to cultivate, your temper to govern, your will to direct, and your judgment to instruct. You are master over a hard lot; and if you don't master them, they will master you."

"That is so," said the young man.

"Now I could undertake no such thing," said his friend. "I should fail, sure, if I did. Saul wanted to be his own master, and failed. Herod did. Judas did. No man is fit for it. One is my master, even Christ.' I work under His direction. He is regulator, and where He is master all goes right."

It is believed that turkeys were introduced into England from America by William Strickland, lieutenant to Sebastian Cabot, in the time of Henry VII. The first turkey seen in France was brought thither by the Jesuits, and served up at the wedding of Charles IX., in 1564.

W

HAND OVER HAND.

A LIFE STORY.

BY

99.66

MARY MORDAUNT," 'THROUGH TROUBLED WATERS," ETC.

CHAPTER II.

A CALL TO THE HEIGHTS.

TITH little change for me, for the ever-varying work of the farm, which kept all the rest so busy, never entered into my life, I saw the snows of January give way before the brighter skies and warmer suns of the early spring. It was pleasure untold now to sit in my little sanctum and look abroad upon the earth, as day by day it broke into fresher and yet more radiant beauty; with the birds carolling in a very ecstasy of happiness close at my ear, and the snowdrops and crocuses looking innocently up into my face, as they darted their pretty heads above the ground beneath my lattice window. Spring was always my favourite season. I never could see the trees burst into foliage, or the hard brown soil grow verdant beneath the springing grass, without vague yet most hopeful dreams of some happy future, when this dull and monotonous life of mine should mellow into beauty, and glow with gladness, and bring to my empty heart the fulness of joy and peace it so sorely lacked. Ah, I did not know then that such fulness of blessing is a present blessing—to be had for the receiving, the very moment when, with Paul of old, we can say, "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

For some weeks after they left, letters came steadily from both Wilfred and Hugh. They were letters which delighted us quiet home-folks, so bright and cheery were they, full of pleasant details concerning their busy Langham life. But in a while, perhaps three months, I began to notice a marked difference in them-in Wilfrid's particularly. It seemed to me that though he still spoke of ever improving prospects, of rapidly earned money, too— Wilfrid by this time having added many another branch to his primary business-there was a certain amount of recklessness in his tone, and it troubled

me.

Hugh, meanwhile, gradually wrote less and less frequently. A letter from him grew at last to be almost a rarity at Earlsmead.

I have often wondered, as I wondered at the time, how it was that none of the others noticed this. They seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the excuses for not writing more regularly which Wilfrid's letters began to be mainly composed of, and only I seemed to read between the lines something that pressed upon me with an indefinable sense of uneasiness. Yet even I did not guess-how should I?-that it was the first ominous shadow of the cloud that was so soon to overspread and darken those bright young lives.

And now let me introduce to you "old Peter," to whom, after a more than

ordinarily unsatisfactory letter from Wilfrid, I at length resolved to betake myself with my doubts and anxieties.

Past the village a little way there ran a quiet road, where stood a small

cottage-house-a fanciful-looking little place, with honeysuckle and ivy almost covering its brown walls, and the finest of monthly roses peeping in at its little church-shaped windows. It was approached by a long straight path,

bordered by a privet hedge; and above its trellised porch, in ornamental letters, which for many a long year had been the admiration of the juvenile village populace, you read the following inscription :

"EARLSMEAD VILLAGE SCHOOL."

Peter Elton-Old Peter, as its inmate was always called-was a grand specimen of the now almost extinct race of "dominie." Clever and clear-headed, singularly humble and simple-minded, just to a degree that his very youngest scholars could appreciate, he was such a power in the neighbourhood, both among old and young, as only they can understand who know somewhat of the workings of village life. He was our village Hampden, our peacemaker, our oracle, monitor, friend, in one. I say it with pride, we Earlsmead folk could boast of fewer brawlers, fewer drunkards, fewer "roughs;" more upright, sturdy labourers, more intelligent farmers, and more God-fearing homes than any village for miles around. And how much of this was due to old Peter's wholesome influence eternity alone will reveal.

But, like Naaman of old, in Peter's path there lay a shadow.

He had four sons. And each, with the exception of Joseph, the youngest, had turned out badly. People were wont to make a wonder of this, as well as of his own immoveable faith in their ultimate reformation. Even now, though many a year has passed since then, and old Peter has long been laid in our quiet burial-ground at the foot of the hill, I never read the parable of the Prodigal Son without seeing again the gentle, placid-faced old man, sitting, book on knee, at his cottage door, ever and anon raising his patient eyes to gaze down the long white road; or in the winter evenings, by his lonely fireside, with shutters unclosed, and lamp burning, as it would burn in the window-seat all the long night through, so that at whatever hour those wandering sons might return, a welcome would be awaiting them.

Peter and I were great friends. Long after the others had drifted out of their childhood's association with him, I continued to be his pupil. Whether it was that my insatiable appetite for reading fired his own, producing in us mutual sympathies, which led us together to fields of learning as vast as any I could have entered upon at the town school my brothers attended, I cannot tell; but assuredly I had no need to go beyond my old teacher. He was better than all the grammar schools in the world to me, I was wont to say.

This afternoon, then-a half-holiday, I remember, and a fair May day, the road almost dazzling in the broad spring sunshine, the trees meeting above my head like a very fairy bower of ethereal loveliness-I set out on my crutches for Peter's home. I remember so well how slowly I walked, and how out of tune my anxious thoughts seemed to be with the gentle beauty of this fair spring-tide; and I have a very vivid recollection of the half-bewildered way in which I gazed at old Peter's face, which was sparkling and beaming in a manner that quite hurt me for the moment. We are so apt to look for a reflection of our own lights and shadows in everything and every one around us.

He speedily enlightened me as to the cause of his happiness. Joseph, his