ve 'em, whereas
if you'd paid 'em in dollars, they'd ha' had to go halves with the
'upper crust.'"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The rupee is the standard coin of British India, and worth
about fifty cents.

EASY BOTANY.

MAY.

May brings so many wild flowers that the mere _names_ would easily fill
all the space I can have.

But the young flower-hunter must get an idea of some of the flowers sure
to appear in May, and those who will notice the habits of plants will
soon discover where these fair friends dwell, and will learn which
selects the valley, which the hill-side, finding that as a general thing
they may be looked for with the certainty of being found in their
favorite haunts.

Botanical authorities have arranged all known plants in _families_, and
each plant belongs to some floral family, the members of which possess
certain qualities in common, making it suitable to class them together;
for instance, all the buttercups, anemones, clematis, hepaticas,
larkspur, columbine, and many others, belong to the _Crowfoot_ family--a
large family, all possessing a colorless but acrid juice, which is, in
some of them, a narcotic poison, as hellebore, aconite, larkspur, and
monk's-hood. Others are quite harmless, as the marsh-marigold, so well
known as cowslips, or the "greens" of early spring. Others have a
delicate beauty, as the anemones, hepaticas, and others.

Another family, the _Poppy_ family, takes in all the poppies, the
bloodroot, celandine, and others. These have a milky or colored juice,
often used medicinally, and from one species of poppy opium is made.

The _Crucifers_, or _Mustard_ family, have cross-shaped flowers, and
abound in a pungent, biting juice, with which we are familiar; and thus
we could go on enumerating the distinctive qualities of one hundred and
thirty families.

In every month are to be found some peculiarly rare and interesting
plants, and May can show a fair array. In cold bogs and swamps of New
England the genial airs awaken many a blossom that seems too lovely for
such dismal surroundings. But bogs and swamps and wet pastures are well
worth exploring, and are justly dear to the botanical heart; for here,
springing from a bed of soft black mud, may be seen the pink Arethusa,
fair as a rose leaf, the rare Calypso, the singular trilliums, the
graceful adder's-tongue, and several species of the remarkable
Cypripediums, or lady's-slipper. The beautiful spring o