attention. If it still persists in this troublesome habit, we fear there
is no remedy for it.

* * * * *

C. S.--Your inquiry about coloring Easter-eggs came too late to be
answered for this season, but you can practice now, so that by next
Easter you will be able to color eggs "nicely." The best way is to
purchase the coloring matter, as it comes in little packages already
prepared, and with full directions for use. The way you propose would
also be very pretty.

* * * * *

WINNIE R.--Keyed musical instruments similar in form to the piano were
in use several hundred years ago. The virginal, shaped like an
old-fashioned square piano, was a favorite instrument at the time of
Queen Elizabeth of England, and by some authorities is supposed to have
been named in honor of the Virgin Queen, as she was called. The
harpsichord, much in use during the last century, was shaped almost
exactly like a modern grand piano. The honor of having invented the
hammer which plays upon the strings of the piano now in use is claimed
by several nations, but the credit is probably due to Italy, although
the first pianos are said to have been made in Germany, probably in the
city of Freyburg. The piano was first called the hammer-harpsichord,
afterward by the Italian name forte-piano, as it could give both loud
and soft tones, while the harpsichord produced only loud ones. The name
was changed later to piano-forte. Pianos are first mentioned as being in
use about the middle of the eighteenth century.

* * * * *

Idella G. S., Edward L. H., and some other young readers in the far
South inquire what are the willow "pussies" which Northern children
gathered with so much glee in the earliest days of spring. They are the
blossoms of the common low willow which grows in great abundance at the
North, and as they are the first signs that winter is passing away, are
always heartily welcomed. The buds form in the autumn on the brown
twigs, and with the first warm spring sun, long before anything green
has started, they swell, and burst open the brown scaly covering,
disclosing a soft, downy white ament, or blossom, resembling the toe of
a white kitty. This resemblance is perhaps the reason why children call
these early flowers "pussies."

* * * * *

A. ENGEL.--Directions for feeding mocking-birds are given in Post-office