the owner only for the good it would enable him to do; the greatest good to the elephant was food, so tapping the vendor of the cakes with his trunk and tendering the penny, he first received one cake, then a second, and the seller of gingerbread neglecting the third, the elephant reminded him, in a truly elephantine manner, that he had not faithfully executed his contract, and refused to go. until he received the amount in full.

From this I learn what I was reminded of in an old English market-place some years ago, where was a couplet to this effect

"Who'd seek to find eternal treasure,

Must use no guile in weight or measure."

"Nature is a friend to truth," says our poet, and he who is not above receiving instruction from such humble teachers as dogs and cats, and ants and elephants, will discover the true meaning of the Bible language, "Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee." So let us now hear what our little heroes teach us in their lessons of home-life, where, far from cities, under the shadows of our old green woods, they love best to dwell.

NOTE.

66 THE LEWES DOG."

Since this part of the story was written poor "Railway Jack" has come to grief; but the extraordinary amount of good sense displayed in his suffering, and the extraordinary amount of sympathy exhibited toward him, has only brought his singular life more prominently before the public.

To the kind-hearted family of J. P. Knight, Esq., the General Manager of the railway, I am indebted for the following particulars: Attention was first drawn toward the dog about three years ago; he would follow no one out of the Company's livery, but was the friend of all the officers in its employ. Having a free pass to all the trains he enjoyed an excursion every day, spending almost all his daily life in travelling. One day an account was kept of his move

ments. Starting from his native place, the Lewes station-the stationmaster there being Jack's owner-by the 7.27 a.m. train, he left for Falmer, where he just alighted to say "good morning" to the officials; he then returned to Lewes by the next train, leaving again for Newhaven in the 10.15 tidal train, getting home at 11.12; he then started for Hastings by the 11.35 train, returning to Lewes at 3 p.m., and, after resting, left for London by the 6.13 p.m. train, leaving the City for Lewes by the last train at 9.30, sleeping, as usual, at home. Fond of the seaside, Jack would sometimes visit Brighton, completing the triangle by changing carriages for Hayward's Heath, thence reaching Lewes. He would lie still on the line, carefully jumping on to the platform on the approach of a train, and coolly walking under the carriages when the train was standing still at the station. Jack's misfortune happened about the beginning of the present year, 1882. He had been absent from home for several days, when he was brought back with one of his legs completely crushed. An alteration had been made on the platform of the Norwood Junction station unknown to Jack. Previous to this, whenever the dog was on one side and wanted to reach a train starting from the other, he would, in the proper manner, pass under the line through the tunnel; but this time the platform alteration seems to have caused him some confusion, and regardless of the caution, "It is dangerous to cross the line," poor Jack jumped on to it just as a train was passing, and, falling under the engine, his left forefoot was severely fractured. He was taken to a neighbouring surgeon, who bound up the broken limb and sent him home; there, under the influence of chloroform, the broken leg was taken off. He was constantly watched and well cared for, the only person who was excluded from his company being his master, his presence being feared to be too exciting at a time when the greatest quiet was necessary. Messages and telegrams from many quarters arrived inquiring after Jack's welfare. Miss Knight, who has favoured me with these interesting particulars, together with a photograph of the dog, writes (June, 1882), “I have just seen poor Jack, who is now well again, but has not been allowed to travel since his accident, as the strain of long standing on his three legs is rather too much at present. It has been proposed to get him an indiarubber leg." I am told that Jack's last public appearance at Lewes was when he returned from a wedding (my informant does not say whether canine or otherwise) at Berwick, when he arrived gaily bedecked with ribbons in honour of the event.

He exhibited the most extraordinary patience in the amputation of the limb, licking the hands of the operator, and evincing every token of gratitude.

Jack's longest recorded journey was from Paris to Scotland. So indicative of good sense is his photograph, that any lover of dogs, without any knowledge of his character, looking into his intelligent face would say, "He's no fool!"

Round his neck he wears a fine new shining silvery collar, on which is engraved, "I am Jack, the L. B. and S. C. Railway dog. Please give me a drink and I will then go home to Lewes. This collar was presented by Mrs. J. P. Knight, Brockley."

An Ordinary Labourer.

CHAPTER VIII.

DESIGN.

"It has been well said that in the book of Nature is written in the plainest character the existence of a God which revelation takes for granted; of a God how full of contrivance! how fertile in expedients! how benevolent in His ends! At work everywhere-everywhere, too, with equal diligence, leaving nothing incomplete; finishing the hinge in the wing of an insect as perfectly as if it were all He had to do; unconfounded by the multiplicity of objects, undistracted by their dispersion, unwearied by their incessant demands on Him; fresh as in that day when the morning stars first sang together, and all nature shouted for joy."-JESSE.

N a former part of our story I told you there are a great variety of ants. Sir John Lubbock perhaps the first authority on the habits of this insect in our day, and to whom I am personally indebted for much of the matter here introduced, and who has very kindly authorized its usetells us there are upwards of seven hundred kinds in the warmer regions; even in our own country he knows of nearly thirty different species.

He has upwards of thirty nests, belonging to about twenty species, and he says that no two species are identical in their habits.

We can make many observations about bees in the daytime by means of Marriott's glass hives-which we very strongly recommend you to see when you visit the Crystal Palace, where Mr. Marriott will oblige you by showing you the queen, whilst her great colony all turn with their faces towards her majesty as she passes amongst them; but our difficulty with the little people is that they prefer working in the dark. In my garden are two large vases; the pedestal and the leg of the vase is hollow. The ants have chosen these vases, unfortunately for us, in the hollow parts, and they have tunnelled the paths and hollowed out the subjacent earth, and made themselves quite at home, making daily excursions to their favourite aphis and our favourite fruit.

Ants are the gipsies of the insect world; they beg, borrow, and, I am sorry to add, they steal.

Perhaps you will ask me what good do they? If no other good, surely the lessons they teach would more than counterbalance the little harm they do. How much more we think of the effect of a good teacher of music, for example, than we do of the harm of his not scraping his boots in dirty weather when he comes to give us a lesson !

Yes, ants are the gipsies of the insect world; they have their fancies for particular localities, and their restless, roving natures are very much like those of the ancient people.

I have explained to you how the ant passes through a trinity of life, first appearing as larva, then pupa, then imago -words signifying "mask," "inummy," and "perfect image;" and in the ant's duties I have briefly directed your attention to the varied employment both of workers and nurses. At different stages of growth in larva state, ants require different food and different temperature. John Lubbock says, "I have observed, also, that they are very often sorted according to age. It is very curious in