Birds with breasts lighter in color than their backs cannot be seen so easily as those that are all of one color. An artist proved this by setting three potatoes upon wires a little above the ground in a ploughed field.

He painted the under parts of two of the potatoes almost white. When you stood some distance away, the two potatoes that he had painted disappeared from sight, while the other one could be plainly seen and seemed almost black.

It was seen because the part that was in shadow looked much darker than the ground. Painting this part white made it look from a distance like the rest of the potato and like the ground, and then it could not be seen. This is why so many birds have light breasts. It helps to hide them.

Birds are great travelers. Most of them come to us in the spring and leave us in the fall. Their summer and winter homes are often three thousand miles apart, as far as Columbus sailed when he discovered America.

Many birds make this journey by night. Have you never heard them whistle in the air above you just after dark some autumn evening?

Perhaps you have seen flocks of wild geese flying over in the day?

Perhaps some evening you have had a visit from a little bird on its journey. At such times birds often fly against lighted windows or into lighted rooms through open windows, and hundreds are killed every year by flying against great light-houses along the coast.

Did you know that the birds helped Columbus discover America? When the sailors grumbled, he might have had to turn back, if it had not been for the land-birds that came flying and singing about the ship in the morning, and flew away at night.

Columbus and the sailors knew these were landbirds, and they turned the ship about and followed them. The birds were taking the shortest way from one group of islands to another; and by following them Columbus reached land nearly a week sooner than he would have done, if he had kept on as he had been sailing.

He would not have been able to have kept his sailors sailing west for a week longer. So, you see, the birds traveling from their summer to their winter homes helped discover America.

Birds cannot talk, and yet they can say a great many things to each other. We are just begin ning to find out how much they can say. But we all know that birds can sing, and some of them beautifully.

Birds are often named from their songs. What is the name of the bird that says, "Chick-a-deedee"? Of the one that says, "Whip-poor-will”? Of the one that says, "Chippy, chippy, chippy, chippy"?. Of the one that says, "Phoebe"? Why is the quail sometimes called, "Bob White"?

People have always tried to put bird songs into words, and often, when we think of the words, the songs seem to sound just like them. Who has not heard the robin in the rain sing, "Cheerily, cheerily, cheer up, cheer up"? Who has not heard the oven-bird in the woods yell out, "Teacher! TEACHER! TEACHER"?

Listen to the brown-thrasher in the spring, and hear him tell the farmer, "Cover it up! cover it up! cover it up! Pick it up! pick it up! pick it up! Pull it up! pull it up! pull it up"!

There are many funny stories of men who, going through the woods at night, have told their names to the owls when they asked, "Who are you"?

The blue bird is said to have turned a bad man from robbery, and perhaps murder, early one morning by singing, "Purity, purity, purity," a song that the man had been taught to listen for, when a boy.

Watch the birds, listen to them, study them; so you will know and love them and grow to be better for it.

7

THE OLIVE TREE AND THE FIG TREE.

One winter day an olive tree, which keeps its green leaves all the year, made fun of a fig tree because its branches were bare.

The next day a heavy snow storm came on. The snow fell thick and fast. Very little snow stayed on the bare branches of the fig tree, but the leaves of the olive tree caught and held it until they were bent almost to the ground. Soon the weight of the snow was so great that many of the olive branches were broken. After this the olive tree never again made fun of the fig tree because it did not have leaves in winter.

THE EVENING WIND.

How softly sighs
Through evening skies
To flowers, the breeze-
Till each one lies
In restful ease;

Then says the breeze
To birds in trees
In forest deep,

"Good-night" to these-
Then-falls asleep.

FROM THE GERMAN.

THE HORSE OF ANTIOCHUS.

Antiochus, the King of Syria, was killed in battle. He rode a horse which he dearly loved and which loved him in return.

As

As the King fell from his horse dead, his slayer leaped upon the horse's back. if mad, the horse ran forward to the edge of a high precipice, doing it so quickly that his rider could not get off,

or was so taken by surprise that he did not think to do so. The horse reached the edge and leaped over the precipice with his rider still on his back. At the foot of the precipice, they were both found dead.