patting her cheek with the soft cushion of its foot awoke her, and by gesture and cry the attention was arrested, and on coming downstairs to see what it was all about there lay our poor pet a-dying.

Similarly, ant watchmen will awaken sleepy ants in the morning by strokes with their antennæ, following this up, if ineffectual, with a bite; so, as reported in " Chambers's Journal," a regimental dog during the Crimean war would visit the sleeping sentinels at night, apprising them of any threatened danger, while if they were awake and ready he passed on to the next.

Observe in these stories how nearly the "little people come up to the big in the matter of mind, and learn from the lesson it teaches to reach up higher and higher in life. The common honey bee knows how to convert a worker larva into a royal imago, and the secret of all is simply the food it takes: 66 go then and do likewise," for we too grow by the food we eat, metaphorically and literally, spiritually and physically. Ants will invariably come to each others help let us learn the luxury of doing good. It is. no uncommon sight in the country to witness one ant who, having discovered a dead stag-beetle about a hundred times its own size and weight, is trying with all its might to get the monster home for the family food; then failing, and leaving the meal to ask another ant to come to its help, when, with united strength, the object is accomplished.

In how many ways may this be suggestive? The case of a rat is recorded who, in order to convey a potato to the general store, stretched himself on his back on the floor, secured the potato on his chest, and kept it firmly there with his paws, waiting the arrival of a companion, who, placing his companion's tail in his own mouth, dragged him along to a hole in the floor, thus making a wheelbarrow in which to convey the desired food to the family. Even rival ants will sink their family differences when.

a common enemy has to be attacked. Would that both in the world and the Church the "lord of creation" would take a lesson from the little people in this respect! Feeling that "union is strength," they unite in a common cause, and concentrate all their wisdom and strength in what they have to do. Go to the ant, thou" obstructionist," consider her ways and be wise.

It would be wrong for you to suppose that these good qualities alone characterize the family of the little people. It is with them as with ourselves. Knowledge is power.”

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The ant that makes use of its tiny brain most fares the best; perhaps, as with man, the more the brain is used in reason the bigger and stronger it becomes. Difference in intelligence displays itself often in the same family, and diversities of gifts frequently are seen where all have been under the same home influence and educated at the same school. So is it both with ants and bees. Sir John Lubbock calls this, "interesting illustrations of the individual differences existing between ants;" adding that "there are priests, Levites, and good Samaritans among them, as among men. It is remarkable," he says, "how much individual ants appear to differ from one another in character."

Wisdom is not represented by bulk amongst the little people any more than the big. Very often it is just the contrary; small ants will overcome large ones in battle, because they quickly comprehend the language of their tribe, are quick in action, and decided in their manner, and determined in their purpose; and often while the smallest are the habitual masters, the largest are the habitual slaves.

Do we not see this in every-day life? How truly it is said, "The ants are a people."

Every animal has its parasite. Our bodies, I suppose, could they be microscopically examined in their interior parts, would present a combination of the Botanical and Zoological Gardens in miniature, with the addition of a

Chemical Museum. It is so with insects; the house-fly is pestered with a fungoid plant which frequently ends the life of the insect, bursting through its body and surrounding it with a halo of microscopic vegetables on our windowpanes, where the poor fly, making one final struggle for life, is fastened by its own marvellous sucking tongue. The golden fish is also the prey of a beautiful fungoid plant, which, unless removed, is sure to prove fatal; bees are the prey of smaller insects, both inside and out. The stylops, if allowed to insinuate her ovipositor into the body of the bee, will there deposit one or more eggs which will become both caterpillar and chrysalis and imago before producing the death of the bee, from whose dead body it ultimately escapes. One of my bees similarly "possessed" is a choice specimen of what it is possible for you or me to become in another sense, not literally being eaten alivethough that is quite possible though exceedingly exceptional-but symbolically. Everything has its parasite, and we know not, therefore, where the last link in Creation is to be found, nor yet to what the highest may lead.

"The larger fleas have lesser fleas

Upon their backs to bite 'em,

And lesser fleas have smaller fleas,
And so ad infinitum."

But, curiously enough, the parasite of one in insect life becomes the food of another. Ants feed on the parasites found on the bodies of bees, but, strange to say, these parasites are only found on wild bees, not on those whose lives are spent at home amongst the great and united family in the hive. Ants also carefully attend their wounded friends, licking their battered limbs, and sometimes even restoring animation where, as in the case of a half-drowned fellow, ant life appeared to be extinct. How different this to the singular and suffering instinct displayed by an animal so constitutionally different to the ant, the

common spider, who, if his enemy has bitten half off either of its eight long legs, will quietly retire into some corner and perform its own operation by amputation at the joint, from which a new limb soon begins to make an appearance!

It is no uncommon thing for animals to perform surgical operations both upon themselves and each other.

Dr. Lindsay, quoting Mr. Wood, tells the story of a dog who performed a surgical operation on a cat-excision of its tail, which had nearly been cut in two by a tin kettle tied to it. The end portion of the tail was simply bitten off by the dog, to the cat's immediate relief, and a loving companionship was the result.

The same dog, when a kitten that he was in the habit of teasing got scalded, and had her sores dressed, gently licked them-a common but effectual mode of treating sores by and among the lower animals. By and by a tumour, which ultimately proved fatal, appeared on the kitten's neck; she got the dog to lick it as he had done her sores, touching him with her paw when she wished to be licked, and again when she wished him to desist, holding up her head in order that he might reach her neck.

If the lower animals in Creation give to each other in their troubles such important aid and sympathy, why do we not take more lessons from their book? "Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee."

Surely, from the splendour of the ruins we may reflect upon our own Divine beginning-what may not the restoration be!

Amongst the ants there is a regular caste of nurses: those who are only indisposed are carefully tended inside the nest, whilst those who are amongst the "incurables' are carried elsewhere to die.

You may have observed two horses in the field licking each other's necks, and you may have wondered at the "Reason why;" and as you would not find an explanation to

that mystery in that very useful volume, let me tell you here, in the hope that you will accept the hint on the very first opportunity.

There is an insect called the Bot, or Gad-fly: the female lays her eggs just where the horse is likely to take them with its food into the stomach; they produce great irritation in the skin, and when one horse is troubled with an irritation on the neck it licks another horse on the place where its trouble lies, who, immediately obeying the signal, does the same with his friend, giving the desired relief.

Here is another illustration of the proverb that " one good turn deserves another," and it will match with the care bestowed upon a wounded ant by a passing fellow-ant. A dog in Leeds, some years ago, run over by the wheel of a carriage, was taken by a gentleman into a surgeon's, who dressed the leg and the dog recovered from the accident. Some time after, the same dog, in passing through the same district, saw another dog suffering from a similar accident— his leg was broken. He was seen to take him by the neck and drag him into the doctor's, having, we must presume, a grateful recollection of his former visit.

"All work and no play

Makes Jack a dull boy."

This would appear to be an ant's motto. We know that insects amuse as well as instruct each other. Mister Cricket plays the musical instrument which he carries with him wherever he goes to please his wife; house-flies dance a quadrille round our heads in graceful delight; the merry hum of the bees has become a proverb; and the solemn hymn of the insects in the woods, how delightful to hear!

Some animals are fond of fun. I knew of a parrot who, mimicking her master's voice, would call the dog, and then, when the dog appeared, angrily scold him, seemingly enjoying the joke, while the dog slunk away apparently conscious that he had been made a fool of. Wood describes