may have seen a cat do when she is washing

her hands.

I kept Billy about a year and a half, and then as we were going to live in another part of England, many miles away, we were obliged to leave him behind. However, I daresay he did not fare badly, for the gentleman who took our house was very fond of animals, and had a great many pets of his own, so we introduced dear little Billy to him, and he promised to take care of and be kind to him, and I have no doubt he kept his word.

I think you have now heard all about my principal pets. I had many white mice who were very clever and amusing, and some white rats, but they did nothing worth writing about. At last I was very much interested in some silkworms. They were given to me when they were quite little grubs, only just out of the egg. And how they did eat! to be sure. It seemed quite the business of their lives, and I am sure providing their food was quite the business of mine. Mulberry leaves were very difficult to get, and we had to send a long way twice a day for them. The boy who went used to fetch a large basketful each morning,

and when evening came the greedy little creatures had eaten up every scrap, and were waiting for their supper long before it was time for him to start the second time.

Well, they grew big and fat and sleek, and were the admiration of all my visitors, and I began to look for signs of spinning, when a sad misfortune happened which put an end to all my hopes and pleasure.

One fine afternoon the silkworms had been placed in trays on the window-seat of the room where I kept them, that they might enjoy the sun, and when it grew late I went to take them in. Think how astonished I was to find them all gone! There were the empty trays safe enough, but not the ghost of a silkworm was to be seen anywhere, nor could any one tell me what had -- become of them. By and by I returned to the room to see if just one silkworm might have escaped, when in one moment the secret was discovered. There on the window-seat stood a large tabby cat, quietly licking the empty trays with his long red tongue. No doubt he was the thief who had made his supper off my poor little silkworms while they were quietly waiting for was very sorry for their loss, for

theirs.

I was

although they are not affectionate and funny like some little pets, yet silkworms are very interesting and clever, and those who keep them always find much pleasure in watching them.

One more pet I must mention here, which is not a very common one, the chameleon. We had one for a short time, and though not a creature that any one could admire, for he is

extremely ugly, with his little crocodile-like body, large head, and ugly swivel eyes, we valued it very much for its extremely useful habits of quickly eating up mosquitoes and other unpleasant insects, which it used to catch in the cleverest way possible by darting out its enormously long tongue and seizing them with it. It was a very ungrateful pet. It was always allowed to go about the house just where it liked, and one day,

when no one was looking, it walked out at the open door, without wishing anybody good-bye, and never came back again.

very easily made quite tame.

be interfered with much, or

Chameleons are

They do not like to

carried about; and,

indeed, they are not very pleasant to touch, for they are very cold and rough.

I daresay many of you have heard this curious little creature will change its colour to that of anything that it is placed on,—if on red, it will turn red, if on blue, blue, and so on,—and this, I must tell you, is not quite true; I mean that there has been a great deal of exaggeration in such accounts of the chameleon. It will never turn any bright colour, for I have taken the greatest pains to try if it would. If it has been a long time on anything scarlet or blue or green, a very faint tinge of the same hue will come over it; and if amongst brown leaves, it will deepen a little in the shade of its natural colour, which is a dull whitey-brown. I have never noticed any other changes in the chameleon, and, as I said, I have taken great trouble to find out whether what has often been said of it was true or not.

Now

'ODDS AND ENDS.'

OW, as I have exhausted my stock of tales about my own pets, I will tell you some little anecdotes of animals which have not belonged to me. And the first is about one of those much abused, much ill-used creatures, a donkey, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making not long ago.

He is not a common donkey at all, living upon thistles and weeds, or any rubbish he can pick up on the roadside; he is an aristocratic donkey, and eats, and sleeps too sometimes, in a lordly dininghall, where kings and princes have dined. And where does he live? you will ask. In a beautiful old ruined castle in the Isle of Wight-Carisbrook Castle, the place of imprisonment of poor King Charles I., and the scene of his gentle daughter Elizabeth's early death. Within the ruined walls of that grand old castle does my friend the donkey live.

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