ERSATION BY FISTICUFFS.

After being flurried by clouds of paragrams about sphygmographs,
and phonographs, and pneumatic telegraphs, and scores of other
extraordinary scientific ways of communication, I'm not in the least
surprised to learn that ants converse by one tapping another's head.

I'm told that an Englishman named Jesse once put a small caterpillar
near an ants' nest, and watched. Soon an ant seized it; but the
caterpillar was too heavy to be moved by one ant alone, so away he ran
until he met another ant. They stopped for a few moments, during which
each tapped the other's head with his feelers in a very lively manner.
Then they both hurried off to the caterpillar, and together dragged it
home.

A HORSE THAT LOVED TEA.

Roxbury, Mass.

Dear Jack-in-the-Pulpit: This is a true story of Mary's horse. He
was just as black as a coal all over, except a pretty white star
on his forehead.

Once in two or three weeks Mary had him take tea with her and her
little brother and sisters. She went to the stable where he lived
with Kate and Nell, two pretty twin ponies, and said to him:

"Come, Jack! Don't you want some, tea?"

At that, he came right up to her, and found out the buttons on
her dress, and tried to pull them off, and then untied her apron
strings.

"Now, Jack," Mary said, "tea is all ready. Come along!"--and he
followed her along the walk to the back door and up the three
steps into the house.

What a clatter his iron shoes made along the entry to the
dining-room!

Harry and Annie and Fanny rushed out, crying:

"Oh, mamma! Here's Jack coming to tea!"

Then mamma filled a large bowl with tea, put in plenty of milk and
three or four pieces of white sugar (for Jack had a sweet tooth),
and cut a slice of bread into pieces, and put them on a plate,
with a doughnut or piece of gingerbread. And Mary said:

"Now, Jack, come up to the table!"

You see, he was too big to sit in a chair; but he came close up to
the table and stood there, and drank his tea without slopping any
over, and ate up his bread and cake. And when he had done, what
do you think he did? Why, he went up to the piano that stood in a
corner of the room and smelled the keys, and looked round at Mary.
That was to ask her to play him a tune before he went home.

Then she said, "Oh, you dear Jack! I know what y